


Protective instincs - Google Docs

by Yojimbra



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Genderbending, Hurt/Comfort, Protectiveness, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11097702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yojimbra/pseuds/Yojimbra





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t that he liked her. Quite the opposite, actually - she was easily on his 'Top Ten People Sasuke Uchiha Hates' list. Right below Itachi Uchiha’s name (which was on there eight times) and a giant grouping titled 'Fangirls'; he refused to learn their names. But there at the bottom of his list, sitting pretty at number ten, was Naruto Uzumaki.

She was loud, but so were the other girls. She was weak, but so were the other girls. In fact there was nothing about her that stood out to him, besides the fact that she didn't fawn over him. Theirs was a mutual hatred. And the thing that Sasuke hated most about her was simple; Naruto was an idiot.

It would have been fine, but for some reason every time he let his mind wander in public - whenever he lost focus - he’d see her. And what he saw was starting to piss him off. She was just so stupid. 

Sasuke paused on his way home from training, walking down the same path he always took. He looked out into a small clearing, a makeshift dummy laid unscathed against a tree impaled by multiple kunai. And there in the middle of the clearing was Naruto, standing next to what appeared to be a deflated beach ball. 

“Tch, loser.” Sasuke shoved his hands further into his pocket and tried to walk away. It was just Naruto being an Idiot, it wasn’t any of his business. 

“Clone Jutsu!” Naruto’s raspy voice boomed out from the clearing. 

That was supposed to be a clone? That dopey looking pool toy? Sasuke stopped mid-step, the bottom of his jaw jutting forward. He ground his teeth slowly, something only Naruto seemed to cause. Turning on his heel, Sasuke marched down to the clearing. 

It might not be any of his business. But, it was like throwing away a piece of trash that missed the can. Community service or something like that. 

Sasuke glared at the second clone Naruto had created. He better get some good karma for this. Naruto was too focused on her jutsu to notice him, even when he got into arm’s reach. “Hey, loser, what are you doing?” 

“Bastard!” Naruto shouted reflexively. Her frown deepened while her nostrils flared. She stomped her feet and she threw her arms down to her sides. “Sasuke you jerk! I had it that time but you had to mess me up!” She always seemed to stand on her tippy toes when she yelled at him. 

Sasuke nudged a clone with his foot. It dispelled with no resistance. He smiled as Naruto’s face began to redden at her failure.”There’s no way that was a clone.” 

“Was too!” Naruto rose to her toes again and then bounced down. She flailed her arms wildly, looking somewhat like a rooster in heat. “Just you watch, bastard, I’ll make the best looking clone ever!” 

Sasuke gave a short snort and took a step back. "Well show me, loser." 

"Fine, I will!" Naruto clapped her hands together and formed the transformation seal. She concentrated so hard a headache started in her head, and when the jutsu was finally ready she smiled. "Sexy Jutsu!" 

“That’s not a clone, Naruto,” Sasuke said blandly, smacking his lips and looking at the bouncing blonde in front of him. He blinked once, completely unamused.

Naruto dispelled her jutsu, a large frown on her face. “What’s with you! You didn’t react or anything! That jutsu works on even the Hokage! You must be gay or something.” 

“I’m eleven, Naruto,” Sasuke rolled his shoulders and took a step back. “Besides - you’re not that cute.”

“What? I have pigtails! And pigtails are cute, so I’m cute. The Hokage said so!” Once again Naruto rose to her tippy toes while her arms shot straight down to her sides her hands in balled fists. 

Sasuke raised an eyebrow and laughed once, a short burst of dry amusement. “The Hokage told you that pigtails were cute?” 

"What? No, I heard him telling some other guy that pigtails were cute!" Naruto folded her arms and stood on her tippy toes once again. With a snort, she dropped back down. 

Sasuke looked up towards the Hokage monument, his respect for the old man fading with the light of day. With a hard sigh, Sasuke turned back to Naruto. "Look, show me your clone jutsu so I can tell you what's wrong with it." 

“Why do you want to help me?” Naruto blushed and looked down towards the ground, her eyes flickering twice to attempt to meet Sasuke’s. 

“Because you're so stupid it’s pissing me off.”

“Bastard!” Naruto’s blush doubled in intensity. She glared at him, eye to eye. A deep growl escaped from her as she ground her teeth. Just when she thought somebody was being nice to her. “Fine! Just you watch! I’m not doing anything wrong!” 

Naruto slapped her face twice and formed the clone sign. She closed her eyes and made a sound somewhere between a hum and a growl. She was going to give it everything she had and show that bastard she wasn’t stupid! 

Sasuke felt the air brush past him; it was barely noticeable. But the grass flattened out around Naruto and a few leaves fluttered about her feet, dancing on the sudden slight wind. To be able to put out that amount of chakra was amazing. It probably meant that she had wind nature or something. 

“Clone Jutsu!” Naruto shouted and the wind doubled in strength. She could feel it - she had done it this time - she had made a perfect clone of herself! She opened one eye slowly to see the fruits of her labor. 

The clone looked like somebody had turned Naruto into a balloon and inflated it to the point of bursting. The clone opened it’s mouth and began to whistle as hot air escaped from its mouth. Then the clone flew around the clearing, making a farting noise as it deflated. It skidded to a stop right between Naruto and Sasuke, now little more than an empty sack. 

“Uhh.” Naruto looked from Sasuke to her latest failure and back. Her entire body felt incredibly hot right now, especially her cheeks and forehead. Even her ears felt warm. 

Sasuke kicked the clone causing it to vanish. He gave her a single clap and a smirk. He didn’t know what to expect, but that certainly wasn’t it. “You’re an idiot.” 

“Bastard!” Naruto rose to her toes again, all traces of her blush gone. “It’s just because this stupid jutsu isn’t cool enough for me! If they taught me a cooler jutsu, then I’d be able to do it!” 

“Oh?” Sasuke took a step forward and looked down his nose at Naruto. “What makes you think you’d be able to even do a cooler jutsu if you can’t do the basics?” 

Naruto stepped forward chest first and rose to meet Sasuke's challenge. If there was one thing in the world she hated it was being looked down on. She wasn't about to let a bastard like Sasuke get away with it! "I'm cool so I can only do cool jutsu!" 

Sasuke smirked and rose to the tips of his toes. “There’s nothing cool about you, shorty.” 

With a pout Naruto bounced back down, her lip trembling slightly. It wasn't her fault she was short! She just hadn't had her growth spurt yet. It was bound to happen any day now…. Right? "Bastard." 

The tone of her voice was almost enough to make him feel bad. The pout and the way her eyes watered had to be some kind of genjutsu to make him submit to her. He dropped down to his feet and growled, venting a bit of his frustration. No, he was going to do this for his own satisfaction and definitely not because she was cute. “Fine, I’ll teach you a cool jutsu. But only so I can watch you suck at it!” 

Naruto looked at Sasuke like he was some kind of savior for a few seconds. Then she scowled. “And what kind of cool jutsu do you know, huh?” 

"Follow me and find out." Sasuke turned to leave and couldn't help but smile. There was no way Naruto would be able to do this jutsu. After all, it had taken him weeks to learn it. It was something the Uchiha all learned at a young age. 

"Wait! I don't want to leave my kunai behind!" Naruto ran around trying to frantically gather all of her kunai. "One, two, three, four, uhh six! No, wait, five! Huh, where's the last one?" 

Sasuke sighed and bent down to pick up a misplaced kunai. It was blunted from frequent use, and half rusted over to boot. He doubted even he'd be able to hit a target with a kunai like this - it was likely older than he was! There was no way that it was Naruto's kunai.

“Hey, my kunai!” Naruto ran towards Sasuke with an armful of kunai. Each one was in worse shape than the one Sasuke was holding. Before Sasuke could respond Naruto ripped the Kunai from his hand and stuck it with the rest. 

Sasuke shrugged and led Naruto towards the pond where he’d first trained his fireball jutsu. He didn’t expect Naruto to burn anything, but if he was going to show her the jutsu he should do it someplace not flammable. 

Naruto followed Sasuke with her hands behind her head. Sasuke was a slow walker so she kicked the dirt as she went. She glared at the back of his head. She didn’t understand it! Why was he being so nice!? Was this a prank? Or a joke? Why was he being such a bastard? 

It wasn't any of his business, he thought. If Naruto wanted to use crappy kunai, that was up to her. Sasuke turned his head back to check whether Naruto was still following him. She was staring up at the sky as the first stars began to appear. Why did she piss him off so much? It was like her entire reason for living was to get under his skin. 

"This jutsu had better be cool, Sasuke!" Naruto said as they arrived at the small dock. She had seen Sasuke sitting on it a few times. She liked this area of town; It was relatively empty.

Sasuke walked along the pier in silence. For a moment there was no Naruto, and he was once again a five-year-old boy trying to learn the fireball jutsu to impress his father. The hand signs were automatic and he could feel his chakra ready to be released. 

Naruto watched in amazement as Sasuke created a giant fireball. It was probably bigger than her whole room! Steam rose from the lake’s surface where it almost grazed the water. "Wow, Sasuke! That's so cool!" 

There it was - the recognition he wanted from his father, coming from a stupid little girl. Sasuke shook his head and released the jutsu. He smiled and placed a hand in his pocket. 

Naruto pounced on Sasuke with stars in her eyes. She always knew he was strong, but to have a jutsu like this! It was awesome! She needed to know it! With a jutsu like that she'd be one step closer to becoming Hokage! "Please teach me your jutsu Sasuke-sensei!"

"Get off!" Sasuke tried to shake Naruto off of his arm. She was clinging to him like one of his damn fangirls! The tips of his ears turned pink. "Let go you idiot loser!" 

Naruto released Sasuke’s arm and pouted. “Whatever, bastard-sensei, you said you’d teach me your jutsu. So teach me!” 

“Fine, I’ll show you how, but don’t blame me if it’s too cool for you to handle.” It took Naruto fifteen minutes to learn the six hand sign jutsu, it was easier when Sasuke realized that Naruto learned better in groups of three than six. 

Naruto stuck her tongue out as she did the hand signs at a steady pace. She could feel it. This was going to be awesome! She held the tiger seal to her lips and blew just like Sasuke did, her eyes wide open. 

Sasuke chuckled as Naruto blew a raspberry. That was worse than his first attempt, at least he produced a flame! But Naruto was only capable of blowing hot air! It was worth was almost worth the trouble of teaching her to watch her fail.

Naruto screamed with her mouth shut. She stomped her feet twice and refused to look back at Sasuke. She was not to going to give the smug bastard the satisfaction. Once again she went through the hand seals summoned her chakra. 

As before she did nothing but blow out through her lips. 

She could hear Sasuke's smugness from behind her. The bastard was mocking her, she knew it. This was all just one giant prank to laugh at her, wasn't it? Why were her eyes wet? She must be tired. Yea that was it. 

"You need to make a spark," Sasuke spoke, mostly to avoid yawning. He really didn't care if Naruto would be able to do the jutsu or not, but he doubted she'd let him leave until she at least made a small fire. “Now hurry up it’s already dark.”

Naruto jumped at Sasuke’s advice. She quickly wiped her eyes and turned to look at Sasuke. “A spark?”

“Yea, being angry normally works, after a while you stop needing a spark and it comes naturally.” 

“Angry,” Naruto repeated, and turned to face the pond again. “Angry angry angry.” She went through the hand signs once again, searching for that spark of anger Sasuke mentioned. Sasuke the bastard. That stupid smug bastard showing her a stupid jutsu and not showing her exactly how it worked. 

Naruto squeezed her eyes shut tight and blew through her fingers once again. This time she felt it. Everything rushed out of her - her chakra, breath, heat, everything! 

For a few moments night turned to day. Sasuke felt his eyeballs dry up as Naruto produced a second sun just above the pond. It radiated such intense heat that the water level of the pond dropped like it had sprung a leak. 

Sasuke stood with his mouth open while he blinked slowly. He was seeing spots. Well, one giant spot that covered most of his field of view; he might as well be blind. His vision returned and he saw Naruto collapsed on the ground. A tree on the far side of the pond had a few branches singed. 

“Hey, loser.” Sasuke walked forward to see Naruto panting. Her whole body heaved with each motion. “You okay?” 

Naruto gave Sasuke the best smile she could. “Hey, bastard-sensei. Did I do it? I had my eyes closed but I think I did it, I’m kind of tired now… I’m going to...” She began to purr like a kitten as she drifted off to sleep. 

Sasuke frowned at the stupid idiot in front of him, snoring like she didn't just make the largest fireball he had ever seen. It had to have been a fluke, he told himself. Still, he’d better make sure that she never tried to do it again. He nudged her side with his foot. "Hey, wake up. I will leave you here." 

“Bastard,” Naruto mumbled and rolled over to her other side, still asleep. 

Sasuke glared at Naruto before he shrugged and started to walk home. He’d taught Naruto his jutsu, so she was no longer his responsibility. He had no regrets about leaving a stupid idiot like her to sleep outside. After all, what was the worst that could happen? 

Sasuke stopped at the edge of the dock. He let out a grunt as he scratched his head wildly. After a moment he collected himself and stomped loudly over to Naruto. She was heavier than she looked. “What kind of idiot just falls asleep like this?” 

“Bastard,” Naruto mumbled into Sasuke’s shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

Why did she smell eggs? 

It was not her favorite smell in the world -- sometimes she had an egg with her ramen. But it certainly wasn't on her ‘Top Ten Favorite Foods' list. That was occupied by nine different types of ramen. Then there was that time Hinata had shared her bento with her; that bento held the position of number five.

With a whine, she tried to bury her face deeper into her pillow and roll over with it. Falling off her bed was not a new experience to Naruto. It was nearly a bi-weekly occurrence, which is why she normally had a pile of clothes next to her bed to cushion the fall. That and laziness, as it was too much work to put them away and it was rather convenient for getting dressed.

This time, however, she landed face first onto the hard floor with a thud that shook the room. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees with a pained groan, still half covered by the scratchy towel she had been using as a blanket.

Naruto looked around the room. It wasn’t her bedroom, a hospital room, the classroom, the orphanage, the park, or any of the other places she had fallen asleep. It was too neat and clean, like the inside of somebody’s home. “Wha? Where?” 

"Can you do anything quietly?" The Bastard's voice echoed from the opened door. The sound of sizzling eggs stopped and a chair scraped against the floor. A nasty fart from a half empty bottle of ketchup punctuated the silence.

Naruto grunted and stretched her body as far as she could by spreading her fingertips to the ceiling and standing on her tippy toes. She came to a sudden stop when her neck popped loudly enough she was certain Sasuke could hear it. Then she collapsed into a standing lump and let out a giant yawn. 

Important questions, like why was she in Sasuke’s house, took the backseat when her stomach growled. It felt like she had been punched on the inside of her stomach by a giant bear. With the towel wrapped around her shoulders she shuffled towards the food. 

The kitchen smelled like eggs, pepper, toast. And ketchup. Lots and lots of ketchup. Sasuke sat at the table eating ketchup with a side of cheese-tomato omelette. He looked up at Naruto and paused to acknowledge her. “What are you still doing here?”

In her right state of mind, Naruto would have vomited at the sight of Sasuke's ketchup filled monstrosity. But her stomach demanded food. "Feed me."

“No. Be grateful I didn’t leave you to sleep outside.” Sasuke resumed eating his meal, as though Naruto wasn’t even there.

He was dressed and ready to begin class for the day. He would finish his meal and arrive just before Iruka started, but his punctuality had nothing to do with a need to be on time. It was just a convenient way to avoid his fangirls. The pink haired one was the worst -- she had discovered his route twice already, forcing him to find a new path. 

Naruto attempted to argue, in that it was his fault that she was here and he should take responsibility for it. But her stomach protested loudly, sounding as though she had a giant fox in there. Wait, why was the room spinning? Why did it feel like her hair was trying to fly away with her head? 

Sasuke jumped out of his chair when Naruto’s head slammed into the table with enough force to make his plate flip. Ketchup and omelette flew everywhere. Untamed hair fell around the table and into his food. He slid the majority of egg back onto his plate but Naruto’s hair was now stained with ketchup. Shame, Naruto might have made a pretty redhead. With his food suitably ruined Sasuke poked Naruto’s head with his fork. “You ruined my food.” 

The only sign that Naruto was still alive was her slow breathing. One of the horrible side effects of having a hyperactive metabolism, in addition to not being able to sit still, was that when she crashed, she crashed hard. With great effort, she uttered a single word. "Bastard."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Naruto would be fine; she was always fine somehow. She was probably too stupid to be anything other than fine. He cleaned up his now ruined meal and was about to do the table when he heard Naruto hit the ground. With a sigh Sasuke walked over to inspect her. 

“Hey, idiot, wake up,” Sasuke smacked Naruto’s cheek in rapid succession. She was still breathing, but her face was ghostly pale. With a snort Sasuke peeled back her eyelid. Her eyes were rolled back so far he could barely see the blue of her iris. “Shit.” 

Sasuke searched the kitchen in a collected panic. He couldn’t just leave Naruto here! Why didn’t he just leave her to sleep outside? That way, she’d be somebody else’s problem. If he had to guess, she probably forgot to eat yesterday. He briefly considered the idea of feeding her the breakfast she ruined. 

Unwilling to touch his own garbage, Sasuke decided on an apple. Fruit were full of energy, right? It was just what she needed. “Hey, loser, I have an apple for you. Eat it.” 

Naruto remained unresponsive. 

“What is it that you’re always wanting to eat? Ramen? I have a bowl of ramen for you.” 

Naruto remained unresponsive. 

“Why did I think that would work?” Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He was going to be late. He’d have to take Naruto to the nurse or the hospital, they’d ask questions and it would be troublesome. “Great now I’m turning into Shikamaru.”

"No, you're a bastard," Naruto's voice was raspier than normal, like she had just walked an hour in the desert with no water. She blinked, quickly pushing out the spare tears that had gathered. She saw Sasuke's apple. "Is that for me?"

With a nod, Sasuke handed it over. He had to snatch back his hand as Naruto took the apple with her. It gave a satisfying crunch as Naruto bit into it, nearly taking out the core. "Calm down, you act like you haven't eaten all week."

"I had a rice ball yesterday," Naruto said in between massive munchs. In four bites, Naruto had eaten the apple core and all. "Bastard, give me more."

“Wait, just a rice ball? Nothing else?” Sasuke frowned and threw another apple at Naruto. “And stop calling me bastard!” 

"Then stop being a bastard!" Naruto devoured the second apple more slowly than the first, eating it in six large bites. She felt so much better now that she had something in her stomach. She glared up at Sasuke as he stood there with his one raised eyebrow acting cool like it was his job. "And I ran out of money early this month!"

“Yea right, you probably just spent it all on ramen.” Sasuke couldn’t resist smiling at the shade of red Naruto turned. 

"Bastard!" Naruto pouted and looked at the ground. Sasuke had hit the nail on the head. She had counted the days wrong so she ended up with almost no food until Friday. "Hey, wait a second, why am I in your house? You didn't do anything perverted, did you?"

“You passed out after you failed to do the fireball jutsu.” Sasuke blinked twice and breathed in through his nose. “I could have just left you there.” 

The Bastard wasn’t being a bastard? Did she die and go to some alternate world where Sasuke was some kind of playboy? Naruto gave a small laugh and scratched the back of her head, feeling her cheeks redden. “Oh uhh thanks, the Old Man doesn’t like it when I sleep outside. Hey! What do you mean the jutsu failed?!” 

Sasuke had to cringe away as she shot up to shout in his face. She had horrible morning breath because she probably didn’t brush her teeth very often. 

All of Naruto’s bravado vanished when she felt light headed. Her feet were so far away and she found herself falling forward. Sasuke caught her and her head fell against his chest. “Bastard.” 

"What's wrong with you?" Sasuke asked and held Naruto at arm's length. He was going to be late for class at this rate. Even later if he had to take her to the hospital.

Naruto shook her head and slapped her cheeks. The slight dizziness she’d had moments ago vanished quickly. Sasuke was still holding her shoulders with a stupid concerned look on his face. She pushed his hands away with a pout, stomping her feet before rising to her tippy toes. "I'm fine. Now tell me what happened with my fireball!"

"You made a really small but really bright fireball. I don't think you should use the jutsu if it makes you pass out." Sasuke blinked twice and breathed in through his nose. It was for her own good -- if she knew how powerful her fireball was, then she'd try to do it again and more than likely cause property damage and hurt herself in the process. It had absolutely nothing to do with jealousy.

“Aww, really?” Her shoulders slumped and her face fell. She stood there inches away from Sasuke in silence, avoiding his eyes at all cost. Tears began to pool in her eyes. “Why can’t I do anything right?” 

Sasuke bit his lip and took a small step towards Naruto. He made a motion to hug her, but stopped. With a sigh, he brought his fingers up to her forehead and flicked it hard. "Because you're an idiot that doesn't pay attention in class."

Naruto stumbled backwards. Her hands flew to the spot where Sasuke had flicked her. It hurt! Her face felt hot, her eyes were still wet and her bottom lip was pushed out dramatically in a childlike pout.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and started to walk past Naruto. “Speaking of class, I’m going to be late. You don’t have to go to class, but you can’t stay in my house.”

He’d tell her about the ketchup in her hair later. 

“Bastard, why’s there ketchup in my hair!?” 

Or not.

XXXX

“Why can’t we just cut it?” 

Naruto stuck her tongue out as Sasuke poured cold hose water through her hair. She was leaning back on a bench with her hair hanging off of the back end. It had taken surprisingly little effort to get Sasuke to agree to wash her hair, but it was his fault for not feeding her anyways. “Because then it would be all choppy and not even and would stick out in weird ways.” 

Pushing her legs against the ground and arching her back, Naruto got a better look at Sasuke. “Is that what you do?” 

Her answer was a quick splash of water to the face. “Bastard!” 

"I certainly don't comb it or anything. I keep it short enough that it won't get in the way of training," Sasuke explained as he continued to spray the ketchup out of Naruto's hair. There were only a few strands that were caked in the stuff left. "But why do you keep it so long?"

Naruto wiped her face dry and sat back down on the bench. They were in Sasuke’s back yard, much of which was devoted to several uncared for gardening beds. What she wouldn’t give to have garden beds like that… or a yard. A yard would be nice too. “Hey, why don’t you grow stuff in your garden?” 

Sasuke fumbled and began to grind his teeth. Had Naruto been paying attention, she would have seen a tear slide down Sasuke’s face. After a moment he collected himself and Naruto’s hair was wet but ketchup free. “Alright idiot, your hair is clean. Now I’m going to class.” 

“Hey, wait!” Naruto jumped up from the bench, causing her wet hair to slap against her back. She quickly ran after Sasuke with her arms flailing. “You never answered my question!” 

“You didn’t answer mine either.” 

XXXX omake XXXX

“Mikoto!” 

Fugaku nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard that woman shrieking after his wife. It would have been such a pleasant afterlife were it not for Kushina. At the very least she would have been preoccupied if Minato had joined them. He admired the man's seemingly infinite patience when it came to the redhead. 

His darling wife Mikoto patted his leg softly and stood up from their resting spot made of cloud. She smiled sweetly at Kushina. He treasured it, since it was one of the few times she actually smiled. Even in the afterlife, they could rarely smile. “What is it, Kushina?” 

Kushina ran up to Mikoto, her red hair waving quickly back and forth behind her like an excited puppy tail. She grabbed Mikoto by the waist and pulled her up into a spinning hug, sending them both to the ground laughing. “It’s happening!” 

Fugaku was fairly certain that the women would have married each other, given the option. Must be something about Uzumaki. 

“What’s happening?” Mikoto laughed out as Kushina rolled on top of her. Fugaku tried not to glare at the scene. The last time Mikoto was on her back like that and smiling was during their honeymoon. 

Kushina bounced up quickly, pulling Mikoto with her. “Narusasu!” 

Fugaku frowned. He had no idea what that meant. It sounded like a combination of his son’s and Kushina’s daughter’s names. But why would they be putting them together like that? 

He heard his wife emit the same girlish squeals she did whenever she found out that somebody she cared for was in a new relationship. Just like when Itachi had a date with Izumi. Wait, did that mean... 

Oh god no!

Fugaku stood up quickly and walked over to a small break in the cloud-like floor. Swiping his hands around, he created an opening.

“When, how, why?” Mikoto asked Kushina between excited squeals. 

“Just now! He tried to teach her a fireball jutsu! I think he was tired of seeing her mess up,” Kushina answered without pause. It was always amazing how much that woman could speak in a single breath. 

Fugaku wasted no time in locating his orphaned son to see him in the garden, washing that girl’s hair with a hose. He had tried to so hard to set up a decent match for his son, to avoid such a thing from happening. He had even put up with the cold shoulder of his wife for five years because he wouldn’t allow her to adopt Naruto. 

And now he was suffering for it. That idiotic child was going to be a part of his family. Which meant so would Kushina. “May god have mercy on us, my son.”


	3. Protective Instincs 3 - Google Docs

"Teach me a Jutsu." 

Sasuke inhaled sharply, shaking slightly as he did. He had made a giant mistake. Naruto was like a cat, and he’d fed her. Now she would follow him around and beg for food and Jutsu. This was the fourth day of Naruto finding him on his way home. It was scary how she almost made it seem like they were just casually bumping into each other.

"No." 

A reply - any reply - was more than his fangirls got. 

Naruto's frown turned into a full-blown grin. She had her hands behind her head, much like the first time she had followed Sasuke. With a few large steps, she bounced in front of him so that she could look him in the eyes. Finally, after four days of bugging him, he’d spoken to her again! "You can speak! I thought a dog got your tongue." 

"It's a cat," Sasuke corrected without a moment's thought. He watched as she beamed at him with that giant tooth-filled smile. He really should have just continued to ignore her; he already had to study for some pointless history test that was coming up. 

Naruto's smile didn't waver as she tilted her head to the side like a confused puppy. She made this annoying giggle noise through her teeth. "What's a cat?" 

"The saying. It's not ‘dog got your tongue’, it's ‘cat’." Sasuke blinked and shook his head. Why was he having this conversation in the first place? He needed to study so he could move on to more important things. Like training. 

"That's stupid," Naruto snorted. "Why would it be a cat? Cats are picky and assholes, and they always hiss at me. Dogs are awesome and they'll basically eat anything you give them. One time I saw a dog at the park, so I gave it a bit of meat and it let me pet it! So yeah, dogs definitely are better than cats." 

Sasuke hummed in agreement. He should get a cat if only to give Naruto a reason to stay away from his home. She had shut up for the moment, but was still following him. Maybe if he ignored her some more she'd go away?

"Hey, Bastard! Let's go get ramen, Ichiraku’s is right there!" Naruto jumped in front of Sasuke spinning on the tips of her toes; she pointed down the side road towards Ichiraku’s. 

Sasuke stopped and looked down the road towards the ramen shop. He was hungry and he didn't want to cook tonight. It would probably make Naruto happy if he bought her a bowl. Sasuke shook his head to rid himself of the thought. "I don't like ramen." 

Naruto gasped, her hair nearly standing on its ends in shock. She looked at Sasuke like he had just sprouted a pair of giant hand-wings from his back. With a dramatic spin, Naruto grabbed onto Sasuke's arm and began to pull him down the street. "How could you say that? Have you ever had Ichiraku's? Their ramen is the best! You know what? Come with me, Old Man Tenchu will set you straight! Ya'know!" 

"Hey, wait? Naruto! Dammit, let go!" Sasuke shouted, trying to dig his feet in like an anchor. Naruto was deceptively strong and pulled him easily towards the ramen shop. He felt like he was being taken as a sacrifice to some dark ritual to a noodle god. In a textbook roll Sasuke freed himself from Naruto's grip. "I don't want ramen!" 

"Well if you don't want ramen what do you want to eat then?" 

"Nothing, I don't want to eat anything." Sasuke turned away sharply shoving his hands into his pockets and pulled his elbows in close. With a deep scowl on his face, he began to walk. "Especially not with you! Just leave me alone." 

He had expected her to come running after him again. Any second she would come running calling him a bastard and ramble about ramen or something equally stupid. She didn't. 

At the end of the alleyway Sasuke turned to look back at Naruto. He regretted it instantly. Naruto had perfected the kicked puppy dog look. She looked ready to explode into a hurricane of tears. Instead, she bit her lip and stomped away from Sasuke with a fierce look on her face.

Sasuke almost felt bad. Almost. 

She didn't follow him the next day.

XXXX

Sasuke looked down at his marked exam with a raised eyebrow. He had missed exactly one question regarding the founding of Konoha. All he had to do was name one of Konoha's founders. His answer: Uchiha Madara. According to Mizuki's red ink Uchiha Madara was a traitor and therefore could not be considered a founder. 

Typical Senju propaganda. 

He could probably get the points back if he talked to Iruka after class. But that would leave him open to assault from the fangirls. Particularly the pink haired one that just had to sit next to him. 

"Sasuke, look I got a perfect score the the exam!" She beamed at him pointing to her own exam like it was the deed to Konoha. 

Sasuke turned to completely remove her from his peripheral vision. He was going to scowl out the window. But his eyes were drawn to Naruto. The exam was crinkled as her hands clenched it tightly. She shook rapidly and took deep uneven breaths. Her ears were redder than he remembered. 

"Tch, did that idiot fail again?" Sasuke’s head jerked her way when her chair bumped against the ground. He watched her walk down towards Naruto. moving with an angry annoyed grace. Without hesitation, she ripped the paper from Naruto's hand and held it high.

Naruto had gotten a ten. 

Out of one hundred. 

Naruto shot out from her seat and onto her tippy toes in a failed attempt to get her exam back. Compared to her foe Naruto's petiteness was rather apparent. "Sakura! Give that back!" 

She had failed. It wasn't surprising. Naruto failed all the time, he'd be more curious if she randomly started getting perfect scores. Wait, no, given what she did with the fireball Jutsu that sounded almost increasingly likely. 

Whether Naruto failed or not didn't really matter to him... did it? Naruto wasn't an Uchiha, so she was allowed to do poorly, and Sasuke didn't need to do anything.

But he'd taught her the Grand Fireball Jutsu. Sasuke wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew that some Uchiha had taken on apprentices in the past. If teaching one technique was enough for that, then maybe Naruto was his apprentice now, which meant her failures reflected on the Uchiha. No! That was impossible, he decided firmly, although there was still a vague sense of unease in the back of his mind.

"See, you're so stupid you've caused poor Sasuke to start twitching!" Sakura declared when Naruto finally retrieved her papers. "Honestly you really should just drop out." 

Naruto looked ready to explode. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. She whipped her hair around like a hurricane and stood proudly. "No way! I'll never give up until the very end! That's my nindo - my ninja way!"

The door slid open with a violent slam and Iruka walked in with a scowl on his face. "Alright, class, that's enough! Sakura, since you're so concerned about Naruto's grades, you'll be the one tutoring her." 

"What! That's not fair sensei! Why do I have to tutor her?" Sakura stomped her feet and pouted. 

"Because you had the highest grade and Naruto had the lowest grade. Furthermore, because there was such a big gap in scores between some of you, we will be pairing you up to study and perform corrections on your tests." 

The entire class groaned as a single unit. Why did it have to be group work?

"That's enough of it, I know that many of you would prefer to work on your own or to choose your own groups, but you are future ninja of Konoha! And teamwork is vital to your success in the field. It’s not uncommon for you to be assigned to a team that’s not of your choosing, so think of it as training. Now the pairs are, Naruto and Sakura…"

XXXX

"So Sasuke anyways, I was hoping that if I do well on the test that you'd go out with me?" 

Sasuke wanted to scream. He wanted to yell at Iruka for assigning him a fangirl that he was fairly certain just cut a piece of his hair off and then stashed it away. He'd have been impressed if he didn't feel so violated. 

He honestly didn't get it. He was eleven, antisocial, had absolutely no interest in any of them whatsoever. He didn't even know what to do on a date. He couldn't imagine it would be fun to date a guy like him. So why were all these girls so obsessed with dating him? 

"No," Sasuke said without looking up from the textbook. He pointed towards the girl's test, at one of the numerous wrong answers. "Here, for the question ‘List the Four Noble Clans of Konoha' you only put down Uchiha." 

"Well, the Uchiha are the only clan that matters anyways. That's what you are Sasuke anyways." 

"Do you know who the other three are?" Sasuke asked through gritted teeth. He was bad at hiding his anger, It manifested in a tight scowl and glare. To his amazement, the girl didn't seem to notice even when she looked right at him. 

"Pfft no way, it's not like they matter anyway. It's not like any of them are in our class anyways." 

What was this girl and saying anyway? It was worse than Naruto and her "Ya'know" a thousand times worse. With a deep breath that sounded almost like a growl, Sasuke looked around the room and pointed at Shino, Choji, Hinata, and finally himself. "Aburame, Akimichi, Hyuuga, Uchiha, those are the Four Noble Clans of Konoha." 

"It's not like they matter anyway. All I need to know about is the Uchiha because I'm going to become one anyway." 

The urge to slam his head into his desk was almost too great. "For the next question ‘What is the Konoha Council?' You put ‘A meeting of clan heads to balance the power of the Hokage'" 

"Well, yea right like the Hokage leads us anyways. So somebody has to like to make sure he doesn't abuse his power." 

If he wasn't being graded he would let this girl fail. She was such an idiot that had no idea what she was talking about. Sasuke let out a deep sigh and tapped his pencil against his head. "You want to be an Uchiha?"

"Yeah." 

"Uchiha don't fail." It was the pure simple truth. Sasuke paid no attention as the girl's face twisted in confusion. He barely even noticed that she took her test back and began to quickly scribble down answers. 

"Anyways, the Konoha Council does what exactly?" 

The next ten minutes progressed well. A few of the pairs had finished their correction and were allowed to leave. Sasuke was nearly finished when a scream pierced the room. 

"That's it!" Sakura threw Naruto's test up into the air and slammed her hand down on the table hard. "Iruka-sensei I don't care if you fail me there's absolutely no way I can help Naruto at all!" 

"It's not my fault! You keep calling me an idiot for every wrong answer!" Naruto shouted pointing a finger at Sakura. 

"That's because you got every answer wrong you idiot!" Sakura snapped back at Naruto. The two stood glaring at each other for a moment, sparks were about to fly. 

Iruka shot up from his desk and pushed the two apart at arm's length. "That's enough you two!" 

"Iruka-sensei why do I have to do this? Why should I be punished for doing good on a test? It isn't fair!" Sakura looked ready to cry as she grabbed at Iruka's arm. "Please, can I switch with somebody?" 

Iruka looked towards Sakura and then towards Naruto who hid her face looking at the ground. He gave a sigh of disappointment only parents and teachers could muster. With heavy eyes, he looked towards Sasuke. "Sasuke, are you nearly done?" 

Sasuke knew where this was going and stood up. "She has about fifteen problems left." 

"I see. Do you mind switching with Sakura?" 

He would have preferred Naruto from the start. Sure she was stupid, but she wasn't a stupid fangirl. With a deep sigh, he walked over from his desk. "Sure," 

XXXX Omake XXXX 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I found Hashirama and Madara wrestling in the hot springs?" 

Fugaku groaned and placed his head in his hands. Those damn Uzumaki were invading his life. First Kushina. And now Mito Uzumaki. And now the woman had dragged half her clan and his into a massive party. 

Hashirama bellowed in delight and slapped his brother's shoulder. "Don't forget Tobirama! He was there as well!" 

"Yes, but I wasn't wrestling!" The second Hokage shouted in frustration. "I was trying my hardest to avoid looking at you two! Honestly, who has their bachelor party at the hot springs?"

"Oh, please the hot springs of my home were the best in the world, how do you think we all remained so youthful?" 

Fugaku breathed in sharply through his nose. The Uzumaki just never grew up until they were old bags of wrinkles. You never saw a middle-aged Uzumaki. Just kids, teenagers, adults that looked like teenagers… and wrinkled old bags of skin. 

At least his wife had the sensibility to stay out of their gossip. 

"Oh, my that's just like the time Kushina and I caught Fugaku and Minato… comparing Kunai."

Fugaku briefly wondered if it was possible to die again.


	4. Protective Instincs 4 Beta version - Google Docs

If Sasuke said even one thing about her being stupid, she was going to scream. She had wanted to scream this morning when she got this stupid test back. She had wanted to scream when Sakura of all people was her partner. And now it was Sasuke instead. 

The chair next to her scraped against the wooden floor - the noise made her jump and twitch. She saw The Bastard’s hand reach out and slide her test around so that he could see it. He flipped the pages over and breathed in. Naruto tensed at the sound and balled her fist. He was going to do it, she knew. He was going to call her stupid.

And then she was going to punch him. Hard. Right in the nose. 

Instead, all she got was an annoyed sigh and a finger pointed to where she and Sakura left off. “So for number five, you put that the two types of Chakra are; Fire…. Catra, and Water Catra?” 

Naruto blinked and shook her head. What on earth was that? Where was the name calling? Was Sasuke actually trying to be helpful again? She looked at him with her mouth open. There was just no way. 

Sasuke made eye contact and Naruto could feel her face heat up. Her eyes dart down and she looked at the table and then her test. She looked back at Sasuke and then to the test again. “Oh uhh, yea! I thought it was a trick question because there’s only one type of Catra right?” 

“It's pronounced Chakra, why do you call it Catra?” Sasuke tapped his finger on the symbol for her symbol for catra and then tapped the symbol for catra in the test. “You even spelled it wrong.” 

Both symbols were the same. Naruto bit her tongue and glared at the two symbols. Sure, her handwriting was bad, but the two symbols still looked like each other. “What are you talking about? I spelled it right!” 

Sasuke bit his lip and sighed. “Whatever, spell it wrong if you want, but what are the two types of Chakra?” 

“I don’t know. I got the answer wrong, didn’t I?” Naruto groaned and placed her head on the desk. She let out a puff of air that made the page rise up slightly. She repeated the action once more. 

Sasuke slammed his hand on the table and held the paper down. “Okay, so one of the types of chakra is Physical, and it’s based on how strong your body is. The more you train the more physical chakra you have.”

“Bastard! I knew all that!” She didn’t know any of that. 

Sasuke rolled his eyes at her. “Yea, sure, now if Physical is half of the answer what’s the other?” 

 

Bastard called her on her bluff. Naruto sat up and stared at the question hard. If Physical was one-half what was the other? Physical… physical. She slammed her hands on the desk and grabbed the pencil from Sasuke’s hand. She pointed at her test smiling at the now correct answer. “Spiritual right? It’s spiritual?” 

Sasuke made a grunt that sounded vaguely like a yes. His face was twisted in the closest thing to a smile she’d seen him make so far. “How did you and Sakura only do four problems?” 

With a groan, Naruto flopped back down onto the desk. She pressed her cheek into the wood and let out a long flappy sigh. “She spent the whole time calling me stupid for spelling stuff wrong and getting the answer wrong, and talking about how great and perfect you are.” 

“Uhh... sorry? I think?” He didn’t sound very sorry. The dark look he shot Sakura was a good start, though. Maybe the Bastard was becoming less of a bastard. “Right. Problem six; Name the Five Great Ninja Villages and each leader’s title. All the village names but Konoha are missing, and the only title you got correct was the Hokage.” 

“That’s because I’m going to be Hokage someday! Why do I need to know about all the other villages?” Naruto sat up straight and put her thumb to her chest and puffed out her cheeks. 

“You Idiot,” that word made her bristle, “did you never realise that it’d be important for the Hokage to know the names of the other villages and their leaders? For example, what village does Konoha have an alliance with right now?” 

Naruto’s anger vanished when she failed to come up with the answer. Her mind was blank. There was nothing. What was worse was that Sasuke made sense. “I don’t know, okay? Just, like, tell me I’m stupid, and tell me the right answer bastard!” 

She could feel the tears build up. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to be here! Making corrections on a stupid test that she failed. It wasn’t fun, it was stupid! Just like she was. 

Sasuke gave a single laugh. “You’re not going to get off that easily. The village is normally something similar to the country name. For example, in the Land of Earth, there’s the Village Hidden in the Stone. See? Earth and stone, and then the leader is named after the country, kind of. So the leader of the Village Hidden in the Stone is Tsuchikage.” 

Naruto bit her lip and nodded. They did live in the Land of Fire and had the Hokage. “Wait, why are we the Village Hidden in the Leaves if we’re in the Land of Fire? Should we be like smoke or something?” 

Sasuke offered her a shrug, “The Uchiha said that it was because leaves provide fuel for the fire.” 

“Then shouldn’t we be in the trees or woods or something?” Naruto folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at the clock. It was late, they had already stayed an hour later than normal. 

“Trees have leaves, but anyways, aside from the Land of Earth and the Land of Fire the other nations that have a powerful hidden village are The Land of Wind, The Land of Lightning, and the Land of Water. Why don’t you try to figure out the other stuff?” 

XXXX

Iruka couldn’t believe it. His pile of homework had been left ungraded for the past two hours. 

Sasuke had done the impossible: not only did he get Naruto to sit still for well over an hour and keep her on task, he was actually teaching her, and not just feeding her answers. It was amazing - Sasuke might very well be a natural teacher. 

The clock chimed six times. They should go home and eat. 

Iruka looked at the half-finished paperwork on his desk, knowing he’d have to finish it tomorrow. He walked to his last two students and couldn’t help but smile. Naruto had her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she scribbled furiously on one of the questions, Sasuke didn’t even have a pencil in his hands. They were about halfway done. “Hey, you two have earned full credit today, but if you want to finish Naruto’s test as homework I’ll give you both extra credit.” 

Whatever magic was there seemed to waver for a moment. Naruto looked at Sasuke, and then down at the ground. Sasuke avoided Naruto’s eyes like the plague and looked out the window.

“Now, come on, let’s go get ramen, my treat.” Both heads snapped to him, Naruto’s with stars in her eyes, and Sasuke with a surprised smirk. It reminded Iruka of himself and how important a free meal had been for him. It was more than just food, it was company, and not having to be alone for an hour or two. 

“Yea! Ramen! Let’s go to Ichiraku’s!” Naruto jumped from her seat and sprinted towards the door. Her pigtails followed her like twin comets. 

Sasuke stood calmly and collected his and Naruto’s tests. He gave Iruka a polite bow and made his way to the door as well. “Thank you Iruka-sensei.” 

Naruto’s head appeared from around the door. “Come on you slowpokes! I’m starving!” 

The walk to Ichiraku’s consisted of Naruto orbiting Sasuke and Iruka as she buzzed about. She would run ahead, call them slow, get distracted, then shout at them to wait up where she would run ahead again. 

“Iruka-sensei,” Sasuke began in a way that sounded like he was about to ask a question. Iruka looked down at his pupil, watching Sasuke’s eyes follow Naruto around. Rather than a glare or a stare, it was something else.

If he didn’t know any better, Iruka would have assumed that Sasuke had a crush on Naruto. 

“Is there something wrong with Naruto?” 

Iruka shook his head and let out a small chuckle. No, that was a silly idea. He looked at Sasuke and Naruto who was poking at a trashcan - she fell over when a cat shot out and sprinted away. “What do you mean?” 

Sasuke flipped open Naruto’s test and pointed towards one of Naruto’s corrected answers. It was right in a Naruto way, in that it was still half wrong, she had misspelled Chakra as Catra again. “I had her copy a word she misspelled that was written in the question. And she still spelled it wrong, and when I showed her how I spell it, she said they were the same.”

Iruka took the test from Sasuke and stared at the characters. Now that he thought about it, it was always the same words that Naruto misspelled. How had he not noticed this before? He handed Sasuke back the test and watched as Naruto zoomed past them again, taking her seat at Ichiraku’s. “I uh, thank you for bringing that to my attention Sasuke. I’ll, uhh, look into it.” 

“Hmph, whatever, just don’t blame me for her spelling mistakes.” With a click of his tongue Sasuke turned away from Iruka, quickly taking the seat between Naruto and the wall.

“I knew I’d get you to come here eventually, Bastard!” Naruto spun on the chair once and looked at Sasuke. She pointed at the basic menu with an enthusiastic finger. “Let me know if you need help ordering! I know all the best ramen!” 

Iruka couldn’t help but laugh as Naruto began to tell Sasuke all of her favorite toppings. Sasuke didn’t even try to pretend to be interested. “Their first bowl is on me.” 

Naruto spun around and hopped up onto her knees to become eye level with Iruka. She leaned forward and grabbed him by the collar of his vest. “What no Iruka-sensei you can’t do this to me! Please please please make it two!” 

He had to pull Naruto off of him. “Not tonight Naruto, but if you do the extra credit, I’ll treat you again.” 

“I promise I’ll do it if you give me an extra bowl tonight!” Naruto bit her lip and bounced on her knees. She clapped her hands together and tried her absolute best to look pathetic. 

“After you do the extra credit, not before,” Iruka said with a note of finality that earned him a chuckle from Sasuke. 

Naruto’s pout lasted until the first bowl of ramen. The meal was eaten in relative peace. Naruto was the loudest when she was hungry, and the quietest when fed. 

When the meal was finished, Iruka expected the two to say their thanks and go their separate ways. 

“Hey, Naruto, come with me.” Sasuke’s held out Naruto’s test to her with one hand in his pocket. 

Naruto took the test and stared at it. Her face scrunched up and she looked at the test paper with more confusion than when she’d first taken it. “Ehh, why?” 

“I want that extra credit so we’re going to finish this tonight.” 

Sasuke had no idea that he’d just volunteered to be Naruto’s partner for every project until they graduated. 

XXXX

“Get your face off my table you loser.” 

Naruto groaned. Four hours. It had taken them four hours to finish correcting her test. And it wasn’t even because she was stupid. No, instead Sasuke had to go above and beyond. She lifted her head up and glared at the evil Uchiha history scrolls Sasuke forced into her brain. She flopped her cheek back down on the table. “But it’s so nice and cool! And you fried my brain!” 

“Pfft, your brain just overheated because you don’t use it very much.” 

“Bastard!” Naruto groaned and flopped back onto Sasuke’s coach to glare at the Uchiha. She flapped her arms against the back of the couch and then slammed them down onto the cushion beside her. “I did not need to know all of that Uchiha stuff!” 

Sasuke just gave a half smile and walked down the hallway. “What are the two founding clans of Konoha?” 

Naruto tried to follow Sasuke’s movements down the hallway by sliding up onto the couch until her head rolled off the back of it. She heard him open a door and shuffle something around. With a yawn, she fell back onto the couch. It was so late, she should go to bed soon. “Senju and Uchiha.” 

“Who secured the land rights for Konoha from the Lord of the Land of Fire?” Sasuke’s voice echoed from the hallway. A door slid shut. 

Naruto groaned, why was she being quizzed so late at night? “The Senju delegation failed, until Uchiha Fujiyama joined in.” 

The world suddenly went dark when a soft blanket and pillow fell on top of her. Naruto scrambled to uncover her head and placed the blanket onto her lap. She swung her head around and the pillow fell to couch beside her. Sasuke stood in the hallway mid yawn. “Good answer. Anyways, it’s late and I’m going to bed - you can sleep there again if you want.” 

He didn’t even wait for her to respond before he flicked the lights off and stumbled out of the room. 

Naruto kicked her feet against the couch once and then looked out of the window. It wasn’t raining or anything like that so, if she really wanted to, she could just walk home. She placed a hand on Sasuke’s couch and pushed into it. It was just as soft as she remembered. 

The couch might be more comfortable than her bed. With a shrug, she threw off her jacket and placed the pillow against the armrest. She pulled wrapped the blanket around her and kicked off her pants. It was warm and soft. It would be so easy to fall asleep. 

She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. At the top of her lungs, she let out a loud shout. “Goodnight Bastard!”

“Loser!” Sasuke muffled reply came seconds later. 

Naruto pulled out her pigtails and smiled into the pillow.


	5. Protective Instinics 5 - Google Docs

Why was he making a second omelette? 

He was one person, he only ever needed to make one omelette. 

A snore, eep, then a thud, reminded him why he was cooking for two; Naruto had stayed the night. Sure, he’d let her, but he was tired at the time and wasn’t in his right mind at the time - he’d spent nearly four hours drilling the Uchiha history into the blond’s brain, for crying out loud!

As for why he was making her an omelette, it was simple. He didn’t want to hear her whine about being hungry. And she deserved some kind of reward for not being an insufferable idiot yesterday. Well, not completely, at any rate. 

She snored again. For somebody so energetic she sure did sleep alot. If only she was actually quite when she was asleep, it would be more bearable. But no, Naruto’s slumber was filled with soft snores and incoherent mumbles that were often ramen related. She said bastard a lot too. “Hey, Loser, I made you breakfast. Get up.” 

“Huh? Wazuh… ramen?” came Naruto’s mumbled reply, the ruffled noise of the blanket followed soon after. There were two grunts - one ragged, one cute - and a yawn that ended in a squeak. Naruto walked into the kitchen, her blanket acting like a robe, with her head partially covered. Her hair stuck to her face in clumps like undercooked noodles. 

She sat down at the table with a stupid smile on her face, and took an elongated blink. “Thanks for the food!”

Sasuke jumped when Naruto’s head slammed into his table. If she kept it up he’d have to get a new table. To his disgust and mild amazement Naruto began to eat the omelette off the plate as the table supported her head. 

At least she wouldn’t dirty any silverware like that. With a sigh, Sasuke sat opposite of Naruto and began to eat his own meal. He grabbed the ketchup bottle and squeezed it hard. The crude fart-like noise got Naruto’s attention. 

She flopped her head and looked at him, her omelette - half eaten already - hanging off her plate. “You eat a lot of ketchup.”

Sasuke nodded as he took a bite.

“Do you like tomatoes?” 

“Mmmhmm” 

“Do you like fresh tomatoes? 

Sasuke sighed and placed his fork down. He did his best to adopt his father’s displeased scowl. Apparently it didn’t work. “Is this going somewhere?”

Naruto sat up straight and nodded. “Yea, I want to make a deal with you.” 

“No.” 

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Naruto complained, slamming her hands on the table hard enough to make her plate jump. 

“I don’t care.” Sasuke sighed and took another bite of his omelette. Maybe, if he closed his eyes and ignored her, Naruto would get bored and go away. Instead he heard her growl his name.

“Sasuke, listen. I want you to train me in Shurikenjutsu, and in exchange I’ll grow you fresh tomatoes in your garden beds out there.” Naruto had her hands in front of her face in a desperate attempt to look pathetic. It almost worked. “Please Sasuke please please please!”

With a smack of his lips Sasuke placed his fork down again and glared at Naruto. That was his mother’s garden outside, she seemed so happy when she tended it. His mother grew the best tomatoes he had ever eaten. “You know how to grow tomatoes?” 

A blush spread across Naruto’s face and she lowered her arms to her sides. She squirmed in her seat and nodded. “The Old Man taught me how.”

She bit her lip and paused for a moment. The silence was too much for her. “I, know how to grow, planets I can even show you my own, I have a few potted plants at my apartment, I even did a tomato plant last year, so I know that they’re in season soon it’ll take like two months for them to be ripe so that’s why I wanted to start growing them in your garden now.” 

Sasuke folded his hands in front of his face glared at Naruto. It was still his mother’s garden. It had been her special place, so full of life and beauty. Could Naruto bring it back to life? He had tried so hard to keep going for her. But he knew nothing about gardening, and eventually the garden had died and he’d given up. 

He could see the desperation and eagerness on Naruto’s face. “Why do you want to use the garden beds?” 

Naruto let out a squeak and poked at her omelette. She pulled off a small bite and ate it. “Well, I just, I kind of like to garden and I don’t have a yard, and I saw yours and I kind of thought that it’d be better for me to use them than to have them just sit there.”

She did that thing where she looked like a kicked puppy again. It was the most pathetic sight Sasuke had ever seen. Naruto’s earnestness won out. “Fine.”

The blanket fell as Naruto shot up from her seat. It became apparent to Sasuke that Naruto did not have pants on. “Thanks bastard I promise you won’t regret this, we can get started right away! I promise you won’t regret this.”

“Put your pants on!” 

XXXX

It should be against the law to force a child to work on the weekends, let alone leave them unattended at the store while the adults go do god knows what. Sakura spread upper body along the gritty, permanently dirty, hardwood countertop of her grandfather's store. “I bet he’s probably out playing poker again.” 

She huffed and a cloud of dust lifted off the countertop. She’d cleaned it twice already this morning. Why on earth was this place always so dirty? Sure there were pots and soil and dirt literally everywhere. But that was no reason for it to not stay clean! She stood up and saw that her previously pristine green apron was now filthy. “Can’t even relax without getting dirty.” 

Sakura looked at the clock, a sunflower with two bees for hands. It was close to noon, only three more - no, four more - hours of perpetual boredom. Huzzah. She’d already wasted so much of the day not ‘accidentally’ running into Sasuke, and she’d have to make up for that. 

Sakura pulled out her grandfather’s instructions and frowned into a pout. Bad enough she had to be here today, but she had to actually work too. Life was so unfair! “Boxes A and C need to be watered I guess.” 

She stared at the dirty boxes filled with sprouts and sighed. All of these plants looked the same to her. They were just green floppy sprouts. With a sigh she turned on the water to the two boxes and turned on the timer. The sprinkler system would take care of the rest. 

For a minute she stared at the soil as it grew moist. It wasn’t much to look at but at least it was something. Next time she was bringing a book. The ringing of the doorbell meant that there was a customer. 

“Hello, I’ll be right with you!” Sakura shouted and put on her best customer service smile. She took a bit of pride in her ability to fake smile and act polite. When she entered the indoor area of the store once again her smile vanished and a deep frown developed on her face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Naruto turned to Sakura with a sack of fertilizer in her arms and a frown on her face. Her hair was down for once, it looked sweaty and sticky, the girl probably hadn’t showered recently. “Oh, that was you, where’s Hayuto?” 

“My grandpa isn’t here today, so unless you’re going to buy something get out.” Sakura marched over to take the sake of fertilizer from Naruto. It was a lot heavier than she thought, she nearly dropped it. Though if she did and it spilled she could blame Naruto and make her pay for it and clean it up.

“Whatever,” Naruto scoffed and spun on her heel. “Take that to the counter for me, and are there any tomato sprouts for sale? I know it’s still early in the season, but he had to have gotten started right?” 

“They’re grown, but they’re not potted yet and I don’t know how to do that,” she lied. She knew how to pot them, but she really didn’t want to, especially for Naruto of all people. Sakura looked down at the sack of fertilizer in her arms. Naruto had tricked her into getting good customer service. The bitch.

Naruto stomped her feet and turned her attention to the wall of seed packets. “Guh! Fine, it’ll be better if I start fresh anyways.”

Sakura sat the fertilizer onto the counter and watched as Naruto picked at the seeds. That girl was so weird. She eyed the sack and saw the sale sticker on it. It wasn’t much off, but it was more than Naruto deserved. While Naruto wasn’t looking she started to peel the sticker off. It’d serve her right for wasting her time yesterday.

It was then that she saw him. Her dark-eyed raven-haired angel walked around from the tool aisle carrying a variety of gardening tools with him. She could see it now, Sasuke working in the field breaking ground with a hoe as his every muscle flexed, his naked upper body glistening with sweat from a hard day's work. “Hey, Loser, are these the right things?” 

Naruto looked towards the tools and pursed her lips and wiggled her nose before she smiled with a nod. “Yea, those will do great, they were on sale right?” 

“Yea,” Sasuke nodded and walked to the counter. He gave Sakura an uncaring look at sat the tools down onto the counter.

“Good morning Sasuke, I hope you’re finding everything okay.” Sakura sighed and rested her arm against the counter top. Suddenly working at the shop wasn’t such a bad thing now that she got to see Sasuke. 

Sasuke looked at her. Right at her. Their eyes met for a second. This was it, this was where they fell in love. She could already see the lasting eye contact, how the next words from his mouth would be his proclamation of eternal love for her.

He blinked and nodded at her. “Oh, hey.” 

He’d actually acknowledged her; this was a first! She was so going to have to brag to Ino about this! “So, I’m off in a few hours if you-” 

Sasuke walked away. More specifically he walked towards Naruto. He looked at her differently. Not like how other people looked at her differently, but differently from how he used to look at her and the other girls. “Hey, Loser, what’s taking so long? Do you need help finding the tomato seeds?”

“What? No, I just don’t know what else to get,” Naruto huffed as she handed Sasuke three packets of seeds. 

“I thought we were just growing tomatoes?” 

“We are, but there's a thing called companion plants that help make other plants grow.” Naruto grabbed a pack of seeds and showed it to Sasuke. “Like here, you grow carrots when the tomatoes are just starting out to make the dirt better.” 

“Okay, so grab the carrots.” 

“What? No! That was just an example. We’re already going in with good dirt so we don’t need carrots, and instead we should focus on protection. I’m trying to decide between marigolds and borage.” Naruto pointed at a picture of the two flowers. 

“What’s the difference?”

Naruto shrugged. “One’s orange and one’s blue?”

Sasuke sighed and grabbed one of the two Naruto pointed out and walked to the counter. “It doesn’t matter then. Did you get everything else?” 

Naruto followed Sasuke and began to count on her fingers. “Tomato, sage, peppers, flowers, tools, fertilizer. Yep, we’re ready!” 

Sakura didn’t know what to think. Naruto came into her store, which was annoying. Sasuke came into her store, and that was a highlight. Sasuke and Naruto came into her store at the same time and were about to leave at the same time. And worse still they were talking like, like… friends! She would kill for Sasuke to talk to her like that. 

Her hands moved on their own and before long Naruto’s purchase was bagged and ready to go.

“So, what’s the total Sakura?” Naruto bounced on her feet back and forth causing her hair to sway. Her fat frog wallet jingled happily with each motion. 

Sakura wanted to rain on her parade. How dare she have Sasuke all to herself. This could not stand. She had to save Sasuke! Clearly Naruto was bribing him into helping her or something like that. There was no way that Sasuke would hang out with Naruto unless he had to!

“Oh, yea your total is...” Sakura smiled when she saw Naruto’s face fall at the price. She’d removed the sale and charged her the full amount. 

“What? No way, Sasuke are you sure you grabbed the tools that were on sale?” Naruto reached into the bag and pulled out a small hand shovel. The green sale sticker was still on the handle. “Sakura did your forget to add in the sale price?”

“Actually that sale ended yesterday, sorry.” She wasn’t sorry.

Sakura felt the room grow colder and it seemed as though a cloud had passed over the sun. She looked at Sasuke. She had wanted him to look differently at her too. But she didn’t want him to glare at her. 

“If the sale is over, why haven’t you removed the tags or taken down the signs?” Sasuke growled out. 

This was the first time she had seen Sasuke actually mad at her. She had to fix this! “Oh, well if it was for you Sasuke, I wouldn’t mind extending the sale an extra day or two, I know how busy you were yesterday.” 

It happened so fast. Sasuke pushed Naruto’s wallet down, reached into his own, slammed down enough money for Naruto’s full price, grabbed the fertilizer and the other bag and stormed towards the door. “Keep the change. Naruto, we’re leaving.” 

Naruto wasted no time in following Sasuke. 

Even with both hands full Sasuke held the door open for Naruto like a perfect gentlemen. He gave Sakura one last look. And she heard Sasuke mumble something. “Bitch.”

She felt like she was going to faint. 

XXXX

Piece by piece his mother’s garden began to change. From untended and overgrown, to something resembling its former self. The soil was soft, and there were little mounds where the seeds were buried, with markers for the tomatoes and marigolds.

He looked to Naruto, her jacket tied around her waist, hair tied into a single ponytail behind her back. Dirt covered her arms and hands with her face scuffed by dirt from where she wiped off her sweat. She had the most interesting smile on her face. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. 

“This was my mother’s garden.” Why did he say that? Naruto didn’t need to know that. She turned and looked at him, her smile replaced with an expression that was hard to place. It wasn’t the sympathetic look the villagers gave him. No it was something more genuine. “Thank you.” 

Naruto rubbed her nose smearing more dirt onto it and gave him a cheerful laugh and full-faced grin. “You’re welcome Sasuke, I hope our tomatoes will do your mom proud.” 

The sun was far from setting by the time their work was done and Naruto had gone home. She’d be back in the morning to water the plants and for the Shurikenjutsu training. Sasuke sighed when he saw Naruto’s mess in his living room. Her exam was still on the table, one of the Uchiha history scrolls had rolled off the edge. The pillow he gave her was half out of its case and the blanket was in the kitchen, hallway, and living room. Several of the couch cushions were scattered about the floor haphazardly.

“Should make her clean this up tomorrow,” Sasuke grumbled, and began to tidy up. Piece by piece he restored order to his home until everything was back in place. It felt empty. 

Sasuke stared at the empty guest bedroom. It would take an hour of cleaning, but he could get it ready incase Naruto needed to stay the night again. “You better be grateful for this, loser” 

XXXX Omake XXXX

Mikoto Uchiha smiled down at her son as he began to restore her garden with the help of Naruto. It filled her with joy to see the two working so well together. She had fond memories of Sasuke and Itachi helping her in the garden. 

“Mikoto!” Kushina’s voice made her smile grow even more. “Did you see? Did you see!?” 

Mikoto smiled at her friend and grabbed hold of her hands. “Yes! I saw, I saw, what exactly did I see?”

“What Sasuke did when they were at the garden store! He stood up for Naruto! It was so adorable!” Kushina squealed in delight. “I just wish they weren’t growing tomatoes.” 

Mikoto smiled softly, “You know, Kushina, I tried to get Sasuke and Itachi to call them Kushina berries.”

Kushina’s face fell and she looked utterly betrayed. “Mikoto! How could you!” 

“Well, I missed you.”


	6. Protective Instincts 6 Beta version - Google Docs

The past month had been a waking nightmare. 

A deep pit of utter despair had settled into her stomach, making happiness impossible. Her arms were always cold, she could barely eat, and what she did eat was often puked up - her entire existence had become a grey blob of nothingness. And it was all because he turned into them. 

She was used to him being on her mind constantly. The very thought of him used to make her heart flutter and could make her day. But now whenever she saw him, he was always with Naruto.

At the start she hated Naruto, now more than ever. That lasted until she saw him smile at her. And she seemed to be the only one to see it. Ino and the other girls were all either pretending to not have noticed, or were completely unaware that they’d lost. 

They’d all lost to the one person that wasn’t even playing the game. It was enough to make her laugh. 

She was painfully aware of their existence. Every Monday they would walk to the academy together. They would leave the academy together on every day but Wednesday. The real kicker was that Sasuke waited for her, and Naruto didn’t even seem to care about the gesture. She would have been unbelievably happy.

Sakura groaned and ran a hand through her slick hair; she hadn’t combed it, or even showered, in the last few days. It wasn’t even that she was waking up late, or that she’d had yet another sleepless night. She just didn’t care anymore. 

She tried to pay attention to Iruka’s lecture, but ever since the class had been assigned seats it had become impossible for her to look at Iruka and not see Sasuke and Naruto. They were in the front row of seats, directly in front of her. It wasn’t that Naruto was her usual annoying self either, since in class Sasuke had a calming effect on Naruto. 

In the past month, the blonde’s grades had gone up drastically, while Sakura’s had dropped by about the same amount. Had she even done the homework… was there homework due? She used to think that if she was perfect Sasuke would want her, that getting good grades would be enough to get his attention. 

Apparently, she just needed to be frustratingly stupid to get him to notice her. The idea had crossed her mind, but it would require serious effort to be as stupid as Naruto was naturally. She looked down at Naruto’s notes. The first page was pushed to the side, while Naruto scribbled away at the second page - if Naruto had neater handwriting Sakura could probably read the girl’s massive scrawl. She had barely written one line herself. 

Well on her way to being an idiot at this rate, she thought bitterly. Huzzah!

It was late in the day when she found Sasuke. He was sitting by himself during their break from class. She happened to look up after throwing out most of her lunch - it wasn’t even for her diet anymore - and there was Sasuke, just sitting on a bench. 

It was probably out of habit that she started to walk towards him. Or perhaps it was her inquisitive, know-it-all nature that drove her forward. It might have even been a speck of hope so small even she didn’t believe in it driving her forward. “Umm Sasuke?”

His eye flickered towards her while he faced away from her. It was cold and uncaring at first, then it sharpened into something harsh. That was all the acknowledgment she got from him before he continued to stare at the door across the court. 

Two boxes of lunch sat in Sasuke’s lap. Both were empty, but one was neatly picked clean while the other had crumbs and fragments of food left inside.. 

So they were having lunch together now too. 

“I, umm.” What was she even doing here? The last time Sasuke had talked to her he threw money at her and called her a bitch. That was probably a good place to start. “I wanted to apologize for not giving you the sales price.”

“I’m not the one you should apologize too.” Sasuke said sharply, he didn’t even look at her. 

Sakura brought a hand up to her shoulder and rubbed it as though Sasuke had just hit her. She hesitated just a moment before speaking, “Yea, you’re right. I, umm, I noticed that Naruto’s been doing better in class recently. Is that because of you?”

Sasuke’s frown vanished and he turned to look at her. “Yes, ever since that test Iruka has been having me work with her.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said automatically. Half of the apology was to Sasuke, the other half was to herself. “If I’d known you would be burdened with that, I would have tried harder.”

“Don’t worry about it, besides Naruto’s not that bad, she’s just a little odd. Apparently, she has a unique form of dyslexia common in Uzumaki.” His voice didn’t have the usual too cool for this coldness she was used to. Like he was actually interested in talking about Naruto.

That was the longest series of words Sasuke had ever said to her at one time. She might have been happy if they hadn’t been about Naruto. 

Sakura swallowed a dry puff of air that made her throat itch, shifted her feet slightly, and looked down. “You’ve been hanging out with Naruto a lot, haven’t you? I mean, you two came into my grandpa's store to buy garden stuff.”

“Yea, she’s good at stuff that makes no sense, like gardening.” 

This was by far the longest conversation she had with Sasuke, but it felt like nothing. She clung to that small spark of hope as she felt bitter despair reach up to swallow her her. The answer she sought would only lead to suffering. Still, she had to know. “So, um, do you like Naruto?” 

That harsh glare of his returned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean do you like her in the same way that I like you?” 

Sasuke’s face went from angry to surprised, and then twisted into confusion. His mouth opened slightly, his eyes widened, he rolled his shoulder and took a breath to speak. 

The door from across the field slammed opened, and Naruto came running out with a giant smile on her face. A trail of white toilet paper trailed helplessly behind her. “Hey, Bastard! I’m back!” 

Sakura turned and ran. Sasuke might not have answered her, but the way he’d looked at Naruto spoke volumes. 

XXXX

Did he like Naruto? What kind of a stupid question was that? She was just stupid and he couldn’t stand it. It had absolutely nothing to do with liking her. She was stupid, annoying, loud, stupid, happy, stupid, cute, stupid, and most of all stupid. There was absolutely no way that he could like Naruto as anything more than a friend. 

Sakura was just being a jealous idiot and jumping to conclusions because he happened to be spending a lot of time with Naruto. And most of the time it was forced in one way or another. If it wasn’t a partner project given by Iruka, it was tending the garden or training. 

Naruto was the only one on the list of people he wanted to train with, but that was because she didn’t give up. Even when they were tired to the point of exhaustion she would stand up and ask for more. It had nothing to do with the fact that he liked her. 

Not that he did or anything!

“Hey, bastard!” Naruto’s voice tore him from his thoughts and ruined the quiet tranquility he had while doing the dishes. Her voice was bubbly and filled with the excitement she got when she did something right. “Get out here quick!” 

Sasuke sighed, painfully aware that he almost wanted to smile. Almost. He walked out of the kitchen and noted Naruto’s jacket haphazardly thrown onto the ground near the door. A pile of her dirty clothes sat in front of his laundry room. What the hell? Did she live here now? “What is it, Loser?”

Naruto had her hair back in that messy ponytail she wore for garden work, it looked a lot better than her pigtails did. Once again Naruto was in desperate need of a shower: mud was splattered up to her elbows, her face was caked in mud, and she had that giant smile she always had after gardening. “Lookie lookie!” 

“You’re dirty,” Sasuke grumbled. He followed Naruto’s outstretched finger to one of the tomato plants. in the garden bed. The new green growth was so dense that he could barely tell where one plant began and another ended. The only ones he could tell apart at a glance were the flowers. 

Marigolds were loud, obnoxiously orange flowers; he liked them. 

“Yea, yea, I’ll wash up later, but look! Do you see it?” Naruto leaned in closer and gently touched one of the slender vines, at the end of which was a small green tomato. “They’re growing!” 

“They’re not red.” He didn’t even realize he said that until Naruto looked at him like he was the stupid one. 

Naruto just smiled and shrugged. “Yea, I know. They’ll turn red in a few weeks once they’re nice and ripe! Speaking of which, what are we doing for dinner?” 

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Sasuke half grumbled as he helped Naruto up. “Go shower, and I’ll figure something out, maybe ramen.” 

Sasuke smiled as Naruto sprinted into his home like she owned the place. That smile vanished as he realized two very important details. The first was that Naruto did, in fact, live with him. The second: that there was a strong possibility that he maybe, kind of, sort of, probably liked Naruto. 

“Crap.” 

XXXX

Once again Sakura found herself alone at lunch, barely able to eat anything. It was worse today. She had watched them enough to know what Sasuke’s answer would be, even if he didn’t. Maybe she should try to be friends with Ino again. 

After all, they had no reason to fight anymore. 

Sakura forced a bite of food into her mouth and chewed it into a fine paste. She wasn’t certain if she was going to swallow it or not. Her mind kept replaying Sasuke’s words. Maybe she should find Naruto and apologize to her. No, that wouldn’t-

“Hey, Sakura!”

Sakura swallowed hard at Naruto’s loud raspy voice blasting off right next to her ear. She was out of her seat and spun around to face the idiot. Anger and annoyance boiled within her. “What the hell, Naruto, don’t shout in people’s ears!” 

Naruto pouted and folded her arms. “Well, you didn’t hear me the first time or the second or third! You were completely zoned out.” 

“Whatever!” She spun back around with a snort and retook her seat, her face feeling hot. “What do you want anyways?” 

With a grunt, Naruto leaped over the back of the bench and sat down beside her. “The Bastard mentioned that you talked to him about me yesterday so I wanted to find out what was up.”

Sakura took another bite of her food and nodded. “Yea, I kind of wanted to apologize to Sasuke about not giving you guys the sales price.” 

“Huh?” Naruto tilted her head in a way that made her pigtails sway helplessly to one side. “What are you talking about?”

She really shouldn’t be surprised that Naruto had completely forgotten about that incident. The girl’s brain was probably fried from too much ramen. “Back when you and Sasuke came into my grandpa’s store, I was mad at you so I didn’t give you the sale’s price so yea. I’m sorry.” 

“Oooooh, but why were you mad?” 

She didn’t even realize that bit of despair had vanished until it came back. Sakura sighed, she slouched forward and brought her knees up, trying her hardest to vanish. “I was still kind of mad at your for the test thing but, mostly I was jealous that Sasuke was spending time with you.” 

“You really like Sasuke, don’t you?” How on earth was she so goddamn happy and peppy all the time? It was like an excited puppy that just loved the world it made her want to vomit. 

That was why she was so upset, right? That she had lost and that Sasuke was no longer available. She wanted to say yes; she wanted to say she loved Sasuke with all her heart and they were meant to be together and Naruto was just in the way. But something stopped her, and all she could do was nod. 

Naruto slapped her on the back hard enough to force her to sit upright. “Alrighty then, how about a deal?” Her voice was as upbeat as ever, and Sakura gave her a tremulous smile.

“A deal?” Sakura asked poking at her food once again, her traitorous lips were turning into a smile. There was something about Naruto’s tone and smile. It was so cheerful and stupid it made her almost forget about the past month. Was Naruto always like this? Or was she just that desperate?

Naruto nodded fast enough to cause one of her pigtails to whip from behind her to in front of her. “Yea, yea, yea! I’ll help you get with Sasuke if you promise to be my friend!” 

Only Naruto could say something so stupid and innocent. It actually brought a smile to her face and she felt happy for the first time in a long while. She had to let out a small laugh at Naruto’s overly enthusiastic face. “Why would you want to be friends with me? And don’t you like Sasuke too?” 

The most animalistic, unladylike snort came from Naruto that sounded halfway between a pig and a duck. She crossed her arms and pouted. “Pfft, The Bastard’s just a bastard. I mean yea, I like him, but he’s just a friend… my only friend really. That’s kind of why I want to be friends with you ya know.”

“So you’d help me get with Sasuke, and all I’d have to do is be your friend” 

Naruto sucked on her lip and eagerly nodded yes. “Yea, we can go eat ramen, and like we can have sleepovers and do other things that friends do.” 

Sakura pursed her lips and hummed at the idea. She hadn’t had a sleepover in a long time, not since before she and Ino had stopped being friends. It did sound like fun, even if it would be with Naruto. “Hmm, nope. No deal.”

A pathetic, kicked puppy-dog look fell upon Naruto as she stood up to leave. “Oh, okay then.” 

Sakura rolled her eyes and grabbed Naruto’s sleeve to stop her from leaving. “I’ll try to get Sasuke on my own, and we can try to become friends, no deal just do it. Got it?”

Naruto broke out into the biggest smile Sakura had ever seen on the girl. In an explosive squeal, Naruto lifted her into a bone crushing hug that left her feet dangling in the air even though Naruto was a good few inches shorter than her.

Naruto was a lot stronger than she looked.


	7. Protective Instincts 7 beta - Google Docs

“Again.” 

Naruto inhaled sharply at the cold, callous way Sasuke spoke. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, her eyes went wide, and she ground her teeth together. If he said ‘again’ one more time she was going to punch him. Hard. Right in his throat. 

For the past week, the bastard had been forcing her to train. And it wasn’t the fun kind of training where they fought and threw kunai, it wasn’t the awesome kind of training where they learned a cool jutsu. No. This was the ‘I can barely keep my eyes open’, boring kind of training where he forced her to do the same thing over and over again. 

Stupid clone jutsu!

“Naruto, graduation is coming up, and you need to pass this time.” That was the worst part about this. Sasuke was being extra-super-nice about it and actually being supportive, and she was still failing to improve. And he hadn’t called her an idiot in nearly a week either!

She wanted to scream, so she did. With both hands pulling at her hair Naruto let out a long, anger-filled shriek that hurt her ears. It only lasted for a few moments until her face was red and her entire body felt itchy. She took a few deep breaths and glared at Sasuke. “Bastard.” 

Sasuke flinched away due to Naruto’s volume. He took a step back and blinked when Naruto finished. “Look, you’re going to pass the Taijutsu section, and you’re good at the Transformation Jutsu. So the only thing that they could fail you for is the Clone Jutsu, and I refuse to let that happen!”

Naruto pouted and crossed her arms as she sat down. It didn’t matter; she had been trying to do the Clone Jutsu forever! And it never worked, not once! “Why do you even care if I pass!” 

Sasuke sucked his teeth and looked away from her, though she could see a light touch of pink on his cheeks. “I, it’s not that I like you or anything. I just taught you and If you fail then… it’s like I failed so yea, that’s why.” 

“Whatever you say Bastard-sensei,” Naruto said. She lay down on her back and spread out as wide as her petite form would allow, her arms and legs were outstretched to form a giant X. Kicking against the ground Naruto snapped back up to her feet. 

“Don’t call me that.” Despite his words, Sasuke wore a smile. He walked in front of Naruto and mirrored her stance. “I’m going to teach you how my mother taught me. It’s an Uchiha way of learning but it might work for you.” 

Naruto crinkled her nose and tilted her head to the side. Sasuke mirrored the head motion through his nose was most definitely uncrinkled. “What are you doing?”

“Uchiha Mirroring Technique, it’s a training method developed to help young Uchiha get ready to use the Sharingan's copying technique. By learning to copy movements exactly it would in theory also translate to chakra control.” Throughout Sasuke’s explanation, he copied Naruto’s movements, even the embarrassing ones.

“Uhh, what?” 

Sasuke rolled his eyes and sighed at Naruto. He moved his arm and to Naruto’s surprise, she also moved hers in the exact same way. “Monkey sees Monkey do, now I need you to do what you do best and not think.”

“Hey!” 

Sasuke led her through the basic academy katas, and to her amazement she followed his every movement. At first, there was a delay: Sasuke would punch and then, a moment later, Naruto would punch too. It faded second by second until the gap was nothing at all. In an act where the marionette was both master and puppet Naruto’s mistakes and Sasuke’s perfection became one. 

Together they went through the hand signs of the Clone Jutsu. With their breathing in sync they completed the technique. Perfect replicas of Sasuke and Naruto appeared a moment later. 

“I did it!” Naruto jumped up and down in joy numerous times. She had finally made a perfect clone of herself! “Hey wait! I made a clone, that means we can have ramen, right?” 

Sasuke looked away from her, his cheeks were that unusual color of pink again. “Yea, sure fine whatever, we can have ramen I guess, but do it again this time on your own.” 

She gave Sasuke her largest smile, one reserved for those that provided her ramen. With an overabundance of zeal, she clapped her hands together and formed the hand sign for the clone technique. “Alright! I got this!” 

Before she could start the Jutsu Sasuke’s hand clasped over hers. She looked at him wide-eyed. “From the start, that includes the Katas. Do all of it and remember the feeling of when we used the Uchiha Mirror Technique.” 

“Fine fine! Just let me do it already!” Naruto pulled away from Sasuke and turned around sharply. Her cheeks felt hot. And holy crap she didn’t remember anything from when they did the Mirror Uchiha thingy. 

She could do this. All she had to do was do the Katas that The Bastard made her do and then do the Jutsu, that was easy. She could do this! She shook her hands to expel the jitters from her body and entered her stance. 

She bumbled through the basic Kata of the academy. A growing sense of wrongness followed her every step. It nagged at her that she had messed up something incredibly simple at the start. At long last Naruto formed the hand sign.

The obnoxious sound of a balloon being deflated reverberated through the clearing and a deflated version of Naruto fell from nowhere. Another failure. 

He was going to say it! She could feel it in her bones. Every single fiber of her knew what was coming. It was as certain as the sunrise. Her lungs filled to the brim with air, ready to burst at any moment. 

“Again.” 

She screamed. 

XXXX

She failed. 

All of her’s and Sasuke’s work was for nothing. Naruto kicked the ground and swayed side to side on the swing. It was impossible for her to know what was worse. The fact that she failed, or the fact that she had tried so hard and still failed. 

It was easier to pretend that she wasn’t a failure when she didn’t really try. 

She felt hollow on the inside. Every breath made her feel like puking. 

“Naruto?” She turned her head the bare minimum to look at Sasuke. She looked him in the eyes for just a moment before her eyes fell to the headband he held in his hand, and finally to his feet. He must be so disappointed in her. “You feeling okay?” 

No. Her entire life was about being a ninja! She ate, breathed, and slept, ninja! Her dream of becoming Hokage felt nothing more than a spoiled egg. She forced a smile and showed it to Sasuke. “Yea, I’m fine, I just kind of want to be alone right now.” 

Sasuke didn’t believe her for a second. His eyes narrowed, a hand slid from the rope and onto her shoulder. With a deep scowl, he looked torn between punching her and hugging her. “Naruto listen, tomorrow we’ll go talk to the Hokage. Something has to be wrong, you’re a strong ninja!” 

“If, ” Sasuke started, she could see him scratching his brain for something to say. His hand squeezed the metal of his headband so tight she could see the veins bulge on his hands. “If, the Hokage does not make you a ninja I’ll…. I’ll, I’ll keep training with you, okay?” 

Naruto felt a small spark of happiness and pressed her head against the rope. Her smile shrunk but became much more real. “Thanks, Sasuke, it means a lot. I’ll see you for dinner alright?” 

With a deep sigh, Sasuke’s hand slid from her shoulder and he took a step back. “Don’t be late okay. I… well I’d hate for our food to go to waste.” 

Naruto nodded and let Sasuke leave. Part of her wanted him to stay and tell her that she wasn’t a failure. But she didn’t want his pity, she didn’t want to look at him knowing all the effort her put into training her. 

It was just like he said. Her failures were his failures. 

“Hey there, Naruto.” She didn’t even notice when Mizuki had walked in front of her. He gave her a lukewarm smile. “Are you ready for the secret test?”

XXXX

Sasuke glared at the now cold meal he had made for Naruto. He might like cooking for Naruto, but he hated it when food was wasted. With a growl he bit into one of Naruto’s tomatoes, it was large and incredibly juicy. The juices dosed his annoyance before it turned to anger. 

He knew the second that he went out to look for her that she’d appear at his door. Then she’d shout bastard and demand to be fed. She was like a cat. A loud annoying animal that only showed affection when she wanted something. 

Still, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She should have passed. Just because she can’t do a stupid clone Jutsu that maybe saved all of two ninja since its creation was no excuse not to pass her. She was nearly as good as him in everything but academics, and even then her recent test score brought her above Kiba. 

He finished his tomato with a raged filled bite. Everything had been planned out, he and Naruto would pass. They get placed on a ninja team, preferably with somebody that wasn’t an idiot, then on a mission, he’d save her, then he’d confess. Naruto would be flustered at first but she’d warm up to the idea eventually. 

And from there they’d go steady. He’d propose to her once he was a jonin and they’d live a happy life for a few years until Naruto became Hokage. They would probably have a kid or two by that point, a pregnant Hokage probably wouldn’t be a good idea. 

Now that entire plan was ruined. He drummed his fingers against his arm and glared at the door. Screw it, he was going to go find Naruto and drag her to the Hokage office and get this whole thing fixed. Naruto deserved to be a ninja!

His finger was inches away from the when it slammed open. A wild-eyed ninja stood in the door frame, his face marred with sweat. “You, Uchiha! Have you seen Naruto anywhere?” 

“What happened?” Sasuke asked, his stomach dropped and his entire body began to itch as she broke out into a cold sweat. “Is Naruto alright?” 

“She stole the Sacred Scroll and disappeared.” With that, the ninja bound away. 

Naruto stole the Sacred Scroll. Naruto stole the Sacred Scroll. Those words ran through his mind over and over again and left little room for anything else. Then everything was silent, his yard, the night sky, his mind, everything. Then he erupted. “Naruto! You idiot!” 

“How could you do something so stupid!” he shouted, and leaped to the rooftops. Fury, concern, anger, annoyance, and sadness swelled inside of him, along with the overwhelming need to find Naruto before anything else bad happened. 

Frenzied by his emotions Sasuke didn’t even know where he was looking before he arrived back at the academy. The swing set was empty. The bottom of his balled fist slammed into the wall on its own volition. “Dammit, she wouldn’t be here!” 

Sasuke ran a hand through his greasy hair and pulled at it hard enough to feel pain. It should have calmed him, allowed him to think straight. Instead, it only aggravated him further. “You stupid girl!” 

His legs knew the destination before his mind did. He had to find Naruto before they did. His eyes burned and his heart thrummed so fast he felt as though his veins might burst open at any moment. 

A tall tree provided him an excellent vantage point over all of Konoha. Sakura’s home was near the commercial area, he could see nearly a dozen ninja searching the area. Naruto wouldn’t be there anyways. “Dammit, Naruto where are you?” 

Sasuke growled and jumped down from the tree. He knew Naruto better than anybody else. He should be the one to find her. Maybe… maybe then he... they... could find a way out of this. She loved Konoha, and even if she couldn’t become a ninja there was no way she would betray Konoha.

Their training ground was empty aside from the squirrel that eyed him curiously and the two Kunai that Naruto had probably forgotten at some point. Numerous tracks littered the field in a clustered spider’s web. He found Naruto’s and his tracks amongst the cluster, since they always came and left together. Naruto hadn’t been here today. 

The ramen stand was empty, save for the ramen chef and his daughter. There were three empty bowls in the sink and the man was washing a fourth -- the dinner rush had ended recently. A dozen strands of hair lingered around the stools, not a single one was long enough or blonde enough to be Naruto’s. Naruto wouldn’t be so stupid as to come here after the stealing the scroll. But she’d probably try to have it as a last meal before she did something intentionally stupid. 

Her apartment door was open, a thin layer of dust covered everything that wasn’t touched recently. The prints of various others were scattered in a frantic search of the room. All of the drawers were opened and empty, Naruto’s mattress was tossed helplessly to the side and her bed frame was moved to the side. She had brought the last of her stuff to his house two weeks ago. There was nothing here. 

And Naruto wasn’t the type to keep secrets. 

His search grew desperate as he began to search for Naruto in places he’d never seen her before. He ran from one side of the village to the other again and again. There was no longer logic to his searches. He just had to find her! 

“Maybe, the Hokage knows something?” Sasuke panted out. His legs burned and his body felt heavy. He had to find her. With renewed effort, he growled and commanded his body to move once more. 

The hallways of the Hokage's building were congested with various ninja. There was an air of relief about them. Did they find Naruto? They seemed shocked to see him and a bit unnerved. They didn’t matter. 

He burst into the crowded room where the Hokage sat half asleep in front of a crystal sphere. The Hokage looked up at him. The old man smiled warmly for a moment before his eyes went wide. “Has there been any word on Naruto?” 

“Is that what has you so worked up Sasuke?” Sarutobi gave him a small chuckle and stood up to greet one of his newest ninja. The old man seemed relieved more than anything. “You don’t need to worry about Naruto, she’s had a bit of a stressful night.”

“Where is she?” Sasuke asked he wouldn’t allow himself to rest until he saw Naruto. He needed to find her. He studied every wrinkle on the old man’s face, decade upon decade of knowledge and leadership were etched into every line. He could trust the Hokage. 

“She should be finishing up ramen with Iruka and heading home as we speak.” 

Sasuke wanted to relax at the words, since he knew them to be truthful. The Hokage would have no reason to lie about any of this. He gave a quick bow and made his way to the door. “Thank you, Lord Hokage.” 

XXXX

Hiruzen watched as Sasuke ran from his office. He felt conflicted at the concern that Sasuke had shown for his friend. On the one hand, it was warming that Sasuke felt such a strong concern over Naruto, but the extent of the concern reminded him of why the Uchiha were segregated, to begin with. 

He had allowed the two to live together, as it seemed nothing more than an arrangement of convenience and friendships. Which it was to Naruto when he talked to her about it. Sasuke appeared to think differently. 

Most of him wanted to believe that a strong bond between Naruto and Sasuke would be a truly wonderful thing, especially if the reports of the Sharingan being able to control the Kyuubi were true. But there was a small part that feared what could happen should that bond deepen. 

He pushed down his hat and gave a soft chuckle. After all, who was he to interfere in the lives of his young ninja? Perhaps they would become something great. Or nothing at all. 

“Lord Hokage?” Kakashi spoke up from the gathered forces. He spoke in that same lazy drawl he always spoke in when not in the heat of battle. “Do you think he realized that he unlocked the Sharingan?”

Hiruzen could only laugh. “No, Kakashi, I think the only thing on his mind is Naruto.” 

XXXX

Their home was just as he left it. Naruto’s meal was still on the table untouched and likely inedible at this point. The only exception was Naruto’s shoes haphazardly tossed off nearly halfway into the hallway. 

Sasuke let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and walked forward. Naruto’s jacket lay in front of her opened door. He peered in and saw her laying on top of her bed in a tight ball. Her back was to him. “Naruto?”

She gasped and choked out a soft sob. 

“Are you okay?” Sasuke walked forward, stepping into her room with utmost care. He walked towards the bed and looked over at her. Her cheeks were stained with tears, in her hands, she clutched a headband close to her stomach. 

“Nu-huh,” Naruto mumbled, she shook her head no and tried to press her face away from him. She looked so vulnerable. So unlike the strong and loud Naruto, he enjoyed spending time with. 

Sasuke pressed his knee against the bed and grabbed Naruto’s shoulder. Even as he pulled it up she made an effort to keep her face buried in the sheets. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No.” 

He sat down on her bed and stared at her for a moment. The last time she was like this she stole a sacred scroll. “Do you want me to leave?”

There was a moment of silence as Naruto’s soft sobs stopped. “No.”

He could have just laid down next to her but, that wasn’t enough for him. He pushed down on the mattress and slid his arm underneath her slender waist, he pulled her in close and wrapped both arms around her. She felt cold, her hair was dirty and smelled of sweat but, he didn’t care. This was for him just as much as it was for her. 

He wanted this, he wanted to hold her whenever she fell down. It felt so very right. Even if he was taking advantage of Naruto’s vulnerable state. It didn’t matter. 

His eyes began to feel heavy. It would be so easy to fall asleep right now, with her safe in his arms. Where she belonged. Just before sleep could take him Naruto squirmed out of his arms and flipped around. It might have been too much to ask. 

Naruto slid down and buried her face into his chest. He could feel small damp patches appear on his shirt. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly. 

Sasuke smiled and returned her squeeze with one of his own. He wrapped his arms around her and ran one hand up and down her back. 

“I know why,” Naruto mumbled into his chest. 

“Why what?” 

“Why everybody hates me.” 

Sasuke swallowed hard and pulled Naruto closer. He wanted to tell her how he felt. But it didn’t feel right -- he didn’t even know what he could say! Then, just as his eyes were about to close, the words came to him. “I don’t hate you.”


	8. Protective Instincts 8 beta - Google Docs

It would be so easy to kiss her right now. 

All he had to do was lean over an extra two inches. If he did it right now, he could blame it on only being half awake. It’d be a lie; he’d been awake for the past ten minutes just staring at her. She was the river in his desert, the source of his joy in life. 

When Sakura had first pointed out to him that he cared for Naruto, he’d -- naturally -- thought she was just being stupid. Later that very same day, however, he realized that he did indeed like Naruto. At first, it didn’t make any sense. How could he possibly like Naruto as anything more than a friend?

The hyper-awareness of his feelings for Naruto only caused him to watch her more closely. Slowly he came to accept his feelings for her. She was amazing: always cheerful and loud, and yet she understood him better than anybody. How could he not like Naruto as something more than a friend? 

It was why he pressed her so hard during their training. Even if she might be safer as a civilian she would never be happy like that. That was why she needed to pass now with him so that he could protect her. 

Last night taught him many things. The first was a clarification of his own feelings for Naruto. She was beyond important to him; he didn’t know what to do when she wasn’t around. Sakura would swoon and say that he was in love with the blonde. The word didn’t bother him. 

The second was that Naruto had a vulnerable side. It was a soft, quiet side that seemed so out of place . Sasuke squeezed her tighter. It might be selfish, but he liked this side of Naruto, if only because of their current position. Which brought him to the third thing he learned. He was a cuddler. 

The final thing he learned was that there was a reason why the villagers seemed to dislike Naruto, even more than they disliked him for being an Uchiha. And now Naruto knew what that was. The idea of Naruto doing something to make the majority of Konoha hate her seemed so out of place for her. No, it had to be something simpler than that. It had to be part of who she was. 

“I will never hate you,” Sasuke whispered softly. He brushed a bit of hair from her face and smiled. Naruto was such a heavy sleeper. His body moved on its own -- centimeter by centimeter he closed in on her. 

Blue eyes opened a crack. They were unfocused and lacked the normal light Naruto had when she was awake. “Bastard’s trying to kiss me.” she mumbled (or some other modifier to show she’s not fully awake)

Sasuke froze as Naruto stared at him, still mostly asleep. He didn’t dare to move a single muscle. If he had any luck at all, Naruto would simply fall back asleep. 

But wouldn’t it be a good thing if Naruto discovered how he felt about her? Maybe if she did they could spend every night like this. 

“It’ll cost you ramen, Bastard,” Naruto mumbled and closed the distance. She pressed her lips on Sasuke, landing half on his lips and half on his cheek. Less than a second later Naruto let out a loud snore. 

Sasuke blinked. Naruto (admittedly while half-asleep) had kissed him... well, it was half a kiss. She had then fallen asleep during said kiss. He wasn’t sure which part shocked him more. 

Still, he wouldn’t mind doing it again. He pushed Naruto off of his face and smiled up at the ceiling. At some point, he’d tell Naruto that she slept through their first kiss. That was important to girls, right? 

XXXX 

Naruto woke up to a strange yet delicious smell. Her body hurt from the previous night’s events but she felt oddly good as well, both emotionally and physically. It was like she had just pulled off the biggest band-aid of her life. 

The wound was still there, but it was now scabbed over and free to breathe the fresh air. She now knew why people had hated her, why there were whispers, why parents forced their kids away from her, why she was alone. 

“I will never hate you.” Those words that Sasuke had told her brought a smile to her face at first. But would Sasuke still be okay knowing that she had the Kyuubi sealed inside of her? The question left her mouth dry. 

She rolled over and found the still warm spot where Sasuke had been. It felt nice to know that Sasuke would hold her as she slept for no other reason than she was his friend. The warmness that the feeling brought was squelched by the pain of hunger that was slowly growing in her stomach. 

A (add description e.g. savoury, delicious, warm)smell wafted into her nose, fanning the fires of her hunger so much it burned out all other thoughts from her mind. Her feet hit the ground without conscious thought, guided purely by her nose. The only reminder that she wasn’t floating to the kitchen was the cold floor on her bare feet. 

Sasuke didn’t turn to regard her, his focus solely on the pan before him. He worked the spatula the same way that Old Man Ichiraku worked his ladle at the ramen stand. It was a beautiful sight for her stomach. 

She sat down at her spot at the table, and barely a moment passed before Sasuke whirled around and placed a plate in front of her. Two beautifully brown pancakes were stacked with utmost care, a pat of butter sat in the center and sliding to one side in a pool of its melted self. With a flourish, Sasuke poured a cascade of thick syrup down onto her food. 

Tears fell from her eyes and a fork appeared in her hand. Bite after bite made its way into her mouth the same way she ate ramen. She finished nearly a fourth of the first pancake in one massive chomp that left a train of syrup dripping down her chin. 

“You are such a messy eater,” Sasuke chided her as he sat down opposite her with his own stack of pancakes. With knife and fork, he took small measured bites. 

Naruto wiped the syrup from her face and smiled at Sasuke. “Yea! I didn’t know you could make pancakes!” 

Sasuke shrugged and took another painfully small bite. He paused and stared at the pancakes; the light half smirk that normally graced his face when they were together vanished and his lips became a hard flat line. “My brother used to make them for celebrations.” 

The pancake she was cutting into no longer seemed quite as inviting to Naruto. Sasuke hadn’t told her much about Itachi. He talked in detail about his father and mother. But, Itachi was somebody that she had to learn about elsewhere. Sakura had told her that Itachi was the reason why Sasuke was alone. “What are we celebrating?” 

The smile returned and Sasuke shook his head. He began to cut another measured bite of pancake. “Oh, to both of us becoming a ninja! Hopefully, we end up on the same team too!” 

“Oh yeah! Hey, if we do end up on the same team, can we have pancakes again?” Naruto couldn’t help but let the excitement burst from her. With just her fork she carved another section of pancake and folded it into her mouth. 

Sasuke hummed a little, nodding faintly. “Hmm, maybe.” 

The sound of forks scraping against plates replaced their conversation. It was a silence of two parts, the comfortable silence of familiarity and the deafening silence of being afraid to speak. 

Sasuke broke the silence first. “So, what happened last night?”

A chill went up to her spine and all thoughts of finishing the pancake vanished from her mind. Her throat suddenly seized up and she looked at Sasuke. The look on his face was not one that she was overly familiar with. It weirded her out but at the same time sent a warm tingle through her body. “I, umm, Mizuki kind of tricked me into stealing the Sacred Scroll, he said if I learned a jutsu that I’d be a ninja.” 

She tried to bring back the silence by poking at her pancake, now so laden with syrup that it broke apart at the slightest jostle. Sasuke would have none of it. 

“And then what happened?” Sasuke asked her. His plate had been pushed to the side. He folded his fingers in front of his face and stared intently at her. 

Naruto caught her trembling lip between her teeth and fidgeted in her seat. “Well, eventually Iruka-sensei showed up and then he and Mizuki fought and Iruka-sensei got hurt, and then I ran away, and then Iruka said something nice, so I fought Mizuki and I beat him and Iruka gave me his headband and so I’m a ninja now.” 

Her words were a non-stop string of nonsense. She didn’t know what to say to Sasuke! What she could and should say. She bit her lip again and stared at Sasuke. His gaze was withering, she could feel him slowly peeling away at her like he was trying to read her mind. 

She nearly jumped when Sasuke opened his mouth with a loud smack. His mouth hung open for a moment and he placed his hands flat on the table. “Why do the villagers hate you?” 

“I don’t want to tell you.” She tried to say the words loudly and proudly, to look Sasuke in the eyes and close the subject here and now. Instead, the words came out as a little more than a whisper and she failed to look Sasuke in the eyes.

Sasuke’s chair scraped against the ground. A moment later Naruto found herself staring at his feet She felt him squeeze her shoulder lightly. “Do you trust me?” 

Naruto gasped and looked up at him. There was that look again. That look that she didn’t quite know what to think about. She shook her head and closed her eyes tight. “No, I, I just don’t want you to know okay?”

She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question. 

“Well, if you ever want to tell me, I’ll be there for you.” He let go of her shoulder and walked past her. Again she found herself smiling at his words. “Oh, did you learn a Jutsu from the scroll?” 

Naruto was out of her seat in an instant. “Ya!, you wanna see it it’s really cool?!” 

“Sure, I wanted to do some training before we find out our teams anyways.” He gave her a warm smile that lasted until he started to blush. “Oh, and Naruto?” 

“Yea?”

“Your hair looks good when it’s down.”

She blamed the pancakes for her cheeks burning. 

XXXX

Kakashi had expected many things. But a team of kids that looked like they were functional before any teamwork training was not on that list. Once again he’d failed to follow his own advice about expecting the unexpected. 

“Alright, why don’t you all introduce yourselves.” 

“Umm, what do you mean, Sensei? Can you give us an example?” the pink haired one asked as she squirmed next to Naruto. Her name was Sakura, and the only reason he remembered it was because she was remarkably bland compared to her teammates. 

He gave them a deep sigh. He had expected them to be idiots, after all. Especially the other girl. “My name is Kakashi Hatake, I like, well I like many things, what I dislike, well I dislike many things, my hobby, well I have a lot of hobbies. And my dream for the future? Well, I have no idea.” 

They all looked at him like he was an idiot. He had to fight back a yawn and an urge to pull out his book and start reading. He pointed a finger at Naruto, Minato’s daughter. “Alright, blondie with the goofy smile, your turn.” 

Naruto smiled at him and adjusted her headband. Her long blonde hair was in a ponytail that reminded him ever so much of how Kushina wore hers when on duty. “The name’s Naruto Uzumaki! My likes are gardening and Sasuke’s cooking. I dislike it when Sasuke won’t let me eat ramen, and when he makes me study history. My hobbies are gardening and taste testing. And my dream for the future is to become the greatest Hokage!” 

Kakashi noticed the blush that formed on Sasuke’s face. He’d let that stew for a little bit. “And you with the pink hair?”

“My name is Sakura Haruno, my likes are.” The girl blinked and seemed uncertain of what to say. “I like to read, my dislikes are uh, yea, my hobbies are reading I guess? Dream for the future is… uh to not be… uhh.. I don’t really know.” 

He felt for the girl as a fellow aimless traveler on the road of life. “And now the boy in the group.” 

Sasuke closed his eyes and leaned back. He smacked his lips once and opened his eyes to the sky, they flicked towards Naruto and a smile grew on Sasuke’s face. “I’m Sasuke Uchiha, I like to train, garden, grow vegetables and… well… my dislikes are being alone, people not telling the whole truth, just part of it. My hobbies, apparently cooking. And my dream for the future is to have a family and be strong enough to keep it safe.”

Kakashi felt his jaw go slack. That wasn’t what he was expecting at all. 

XXXX OMAKE XXXX

“Fugaku!” 

Fugaku felt his entire body flinch at the sheer volume of Kushina’s voice, to say nothing of the way her sound ground his bones. He glared down at his son as he hugged the woman’s spawn in his arms. This was all his fault. Why couldn’t he fall for a less troublesome family? Or just go crazy like his brother. 

Much less of a headache. 

“Did you see? Did you see?” Kushina bounded up next to him, bouncing around with endless energy as per usual. How on earth could a dead person be so lively? 

“Yes, I see your spawn has successfully seduced my son.” Fugaku knew when to admit defeat. 

Kushina snorted at him. “Pfft, no I knew that was going to happen! But your son! He unlocked his Sharingan! Now he can shoot lazors out of his eyes right?” 

Fugaku blinked twice and turned to look at the short red-haired woman that bounced from foot to foot. It was like she was permanently supercharged with coffee. “The Sharingan does not shoot ‘lazors’, where on earth did you hear that?” 

Kushina tilted her head to the side so that the length of her red hair fell parallel to her body. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“No lazors?”

“No lasers.” 

“I see.” The woman paused for a moment and for once seemed to be a normal person. It did not last long. She darted away with speed that would make her husband proud. “Mikoto! You lied to me!” 

He heard his dear wife scream and giggle much the same way she did at the start of their marriage and their every night was filled with passion. “When are those two going to get married already?”


	9. Protective Instincts 9 beta - Google Docs

His body moved on its own. 

Naruto was going to die. It was simply something that he could not allow, no matter the price. He would do anything to prevent that from happening. She needed to live. 

A torrent of pain erupted as he felt that masked ninja’s needles slide into his back with remarkable easy. The pain vanished as suddenly as it came, and his body felt numb and weak. He could barely muster the strength to keep from falling onto Naruto. 

“Sasuke…” He heard her whisper Her blue eyes were wide and as beautiful as ever. Such a shame his last sight wouldn’t be of her smiling at him. “Why did you...” 

“Because, Loser.” He smiled at his one last barb. His legs felt numb and his arm trembled. Blackness began to cloud in around his vision. “I love you.” 

He spent what remained of his strength saying those words. He fell before could see Naruto’s reaction. Knowing her, she probably didn’t know what to think. 

XXXX

Much to Sasuke’s surprise, he actually woke up. He had expected dying to be much more painful and that having a near death experience would suck almost as much. And yet his entire body felt fine. 

Until he made the mistake of trying to move. An ache seared through him, a very clear reminder that he was indeed alive. 

“Bastard.” He heard Naruto mumble from nearby. 

With a grunt, he fought through the pain to prop himself on his elbows. He saw Naruto sitting on her knees next to his bed, the very same bed that Kakashi had been recovering in days ago. She looked fine despite the multiple rips and holes in her jacket. Her hair was down, and he wanted to reach out and just touch her. 

“Did we win?” Sasuke asked instead. His voice sounded scratchy and his throat burned as he spoke. As soon as the words left his mouth Sasuke knew that they were stupid. They wouldn’t be alive if they had lost. 

Naruto nodded and gave him a sad smile. “Yea, we did.” 

Why didn’t she look happy about it? Did somebody die? “What happened?” 

“I….” Naruto trailed off. Her eyes fell to her hands that were playing with his bed sheet. “Kakashi or Sakura can tell you that stuff. I don’t really want to talk about it. Besides, I have a question for you.” 

A pit formed in Sasuke’s stomach. He didn’t like the sound of those words at all. “What is it?” 

Naruto was silent, her eyes closed tight and her lips forming a long hard line. She rocked from side to side as her face twisted through frowns and smiles. When she spoke it was little more than a whisper. “Did you mean it?” 

Sasuke smiled and fell down onto his back. It was almost going to plan, he had saved Naruto’s life and confessed to her, and now they’d enter a relationship. He didn’t want to be alone ever again. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t tease Naruto a bit. “Mean what?”

“When you said you loved me, Bastard!” Naruto shouted and slammed her hands down onto his bed. 

“I love you.” Sasuke stared up at the ceiling waiting for Naruto’s brain to process the information. He heard Naruto scramble across the floor so that she could look him in the eyes. She wasn’t smiling -- instead, she wore a sour frown. It was the same frown she wore when she was asked a question that confused her. 

“Okay,” Naruto said In a flat tone. Her voice was reserved but shaky like she was holding back. “But how?” 

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at that. This was not going how he had envisioned it. Where was his kiss? Where was the return of his love? Surely Naruto loved him too, right? She dreamed of kissing him! He knew she did! “What do you mean?”

“I mean like umm… do you love me, or do you capital L love me. Like sister love, or village love, or the way I love ramen, or the way you love tomatoes, or like the way The Old Man Loves the village.” Naruto spat out in rapid succession. 

Sasuke turned his head to get a better look at Naruto. Her ears were red and she had the slightest blush on her cheeks as she glared daggers at him. She probably hated him for making this complicated. 

“I love you,” Sasuke repeated. 

Naruto jolted like she had just been shocked, her face reddened further and her hair stood on end. Her cheeks puffed out as she stopped breathing for a second. She looked ready to burst at any moment. “Bastard! I want to know how!”

“I want to kiss you,” Sasuke admitted with a sly smirk. He meant it too, he wanted to kiss her right there and then. Just a light kiss on her chapped lips. He could already feel the soft prickles of her dried skin. 

A deep silence fell across them. Naruto’s turmoil was evident on her face. She fidgeted nervously and her mouth kept moving like she was speaking, but not a word came out. Until at long last she came to a stop, stared Sasuke right in the eyes and spoke a single word, “Why?” 

Because she made life bearable. Because he couldn’t imagine life without her. Because she was cute. Because she was strong. Because out of all the girls in the village, she was the that meant something. There were so many reasons why. But only one mattered. “Because I do.” 

They stared at each other for a moment but not with the love filled gaze that was so prolific in movies and books. It was a peculiar look that was filled with disbelief. 

Naruto stood up and walked out the door. She slid the door open, neither too hard nor too softly, and walked down the stairs. 

Sasuke stared up at the ceiling, drowning in his bleeding ego. That entire conversation didn’t make any sense to him. Where was the joy, the excitement? Naruto should have been happy that he loved her. She felt the same way. He knew she did. She had dreams about kissing him! 

A primal scream Sasuke knew all too well came from outside. It was the screen that Naruto did whenever she had no idea what to do and was frustrated. Only this one was much louder than normal. 

“Stupid Bastard! I He Just I Ahh! Bastard! Stupid! Grahh! When I Deblau! Rahhh!” Naruto raved and ranted as though each word was capitalized for extra volume. Her sentence ended in a loud crack, followed by the sound of a tree falling over. 

Now that was closer to the reaction he had suspected from Naruto, although still far from his hopes. 

XXXX

“You can’t avoid him forever, you know.” 

Naruto glared at Sakura as they finished packing for the trip home. Sakura wasn’t even looking at her! She was just happily packing her stuff, with the slight smile that was only ever worn by somebody that had accepted their place in life. It was the type of smile that was worn by people who liked to give unwelcome advice. “I can try.” 

“You literally live with him, and believe me it’s hard to avoid even somebody you don’t live with.” Sakura pointed a scroll at Naruto as though the parchment would help make her point. 

“I can move back into my apartment,” Naruto mumbled as she grabbed the scroll from Sakura’s hand and jammed it in with the rest of her scrolls. 

“Even if you do that, which would be stupid for so many reasons, you’re still on a team with Sasuke. You’re going to see him like every day.” Sakura gave a small grunt as she put her pack on and stood in one motion. 

Naruto followed Sakura’s lead and strapped her own backpack on tight. “Bastard just had to make things complicated!” 

Her life had been set. She had a good reliable friend, a home that actually felt like a home, and something close to family where Sasuke was her…. Sasuke was… he was… he was…. “Bastard!”

“Thinking about Sasuke?” Sakura asked as they walked down the main street towards the village. They were to meet up with Sasuke and Kakashi there, mostly at Naruto’s urging. “When will you just admit that you feel the same way about him?”

“I do not!” Naruto stomped her feet as she stormed past Sakura, defiantly marching forward. “There’s no way me and Sasuke are in love!” 

Sakura looked at her like Naruto was full of shit. “Uh-huh, well then how do you feel about him?” 

Naruto came to a sudden stop which made Sakura bump into her shoulder. That was what she wanted to know! It was so annoying! Every time she saw Sasuke now, she wanted to scream as loud as she could, and keep going for as long as she could. She wanted to punch him. 

And she absolutely did not want to kiss him!

What was worse was that her dreams were betraying her. When she slept, Sasuke was always there, and he was always too close. And a few times she’d kissed him. 

She hated Sasuke as much as she loved him! Wait -- no -- that’s wrong, she just hated him! Sakura go to hell, Naruto thought, there’s no way that she could ever let herself love Sasuke!

He deserved better. 

“He’s a bastard!” Naruto finally answered, looking at Sakura and sticking her tongue out. “And that’s all he’ll ever be.”

Sakura blinked at Naruto and continued past her. “That’s just Naruto for ‘I love you’!”

“Shouldn’t you be happy about me rejecting Sasuke? Don’t you still have a crush on him?” 

Sakura just shrugged. “Ehh, I know when I lost. Besides, watching you two is just exhausting. I want a nice simple relationship, that’s why I’m going to accept the first normal guy to ask me out on a date.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense!” 

XXXX

Sakura sighed as she looked at her two idiotic teammates. Naruto was as far away from Sasuke as she could possibly be and Sasuke… Sasuke was acting like the Sasuke from before he adopted a random stray. 

He had this annoying scowl on his face that she used to think was cute. He was actually just brooding because his crush rejected him. The last thing she needed was two grumpy-ass teammates making every mission overly tense. 

She reached out and touched his shoulder. It was funny how a few months ago she would have been too nervous to even think about touching him. Now she was half-tempted to punch him. “Can I offer you some advice?” 

Sasuke’s eyes flickered to her, then to her hand, and he let out a low, dangerous growl before he shook her off. “Pfft, what advice could you possibly give me?” 

“Yes, what could I possibly know about getting rejected by my crush.” It scared her how much she sounded like Kakashi as she spoke those words. She gave Sasuke a long blink and a longer sigh that left her eyes half opened. 

“It’s not the same,” Sasuke muttered as he looked away from Sakura. He looked back briefly to steal another glance at Naruto. 

Sakura wondered if it was natural to want to punch her teammates on an hourly basis. It was probably just a her thing, once her “Sasuke Is In Love With Naruto Depression” had ended she became very aware that she was a rather violent and angry person. 

She also became aware of how stupid literally everybody else was. Especially Sasuke and Naruto. Sure Sasuke had book smarts, and Naruto had… well, Naruto had Sasuke. But they were just so very, very stupid. 

“Look, Sasuke.” Sakura felt like she needed a nap. A nice long nap far away from Naruto and Sasuke. Unfortunately, bridges aren’t known as good sleeping spots, and for good reason. “Naruto is an Idiot with a capital I, she never makes the right choices and tends to just go in a straight line no matter what’s in front of her.”

She had Sasuke’s attention now. He stared at her waiting for her to continue. 

“Look, if you give Naruto a choice, she’s going to choose the wrong one every time. But if you don’t give her a choice she’s going to kick and scream for a little bit before she’s okay with it.” Sakura shrugged and slowed her step to distance herself from Sasuke, content to watch the fruits of her labor. 

Why was she stuck playing matchmaker for her teammates? It was so troublesome. 

XXXX

In her attempts to avoid Sasuke, Naruto stayed close to the edge of the bridge and towards the back of the group, so that Kakashi was in between them. Not that she thought her sensei would have done anything to help; his only purpose was to act as a mobile barrier between him and her. 

“Loser.” Sasuke’s arm slammed against one of the large support pillars of Tazuna’s bridge. It acted as a one bar prison cell that prevented her from moving in any direction. How did he get so close so fast? He had just been walking in front of Kakashi a second ago! 

She tried to shout at him. But the moment she looked at him the words died in her mouth. His face was twisted into a deep scowl, his eyes were hardened steel that glared daggers at her. Naruto felt the pillar against her pack as she pressed into it to keep from falling down. 

With a sharp laugh, Sasuke smirked at her, his eyes softening. She preferred the scowl. If he was angry at her she could handle that, people were angry at her for one thing or another all the time. But this was altogether foreign to her. 

He began to lean in. Oh god, was he going to kiss her? He was! Why couldn’t her legs move! This was too much and too fast! They hadn’t even gone on a date yet! Not that she wanted to- wait, didn’t they already go on a ton of dates to Ichiraku’s? Oh god. What if Sasuke had thought they were dating this whole time! Sure, she’d said that her ideal place for a date was Ichiraku’s but she’d at least like a little bit of notice! 

A metallic clink and a pressure on her head caused Naruto to open her eyes.She wasn’t even aware she had closed them. Sasuke was close, covering her entire field of vision as he pressed their foreheads together. He breathed through his nose and she felt his hot breath on her lips. 

Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. 

“I’m going to make this very very clear Naruto,” Sasuke spoke each word like it was a breath, just barely loud enough to be heard over the calm sea below them. Yet to Naruto each word was a tidal wave in of itself. “I love you, I don’t expect you to love me right now, but one day soon you will realize that you feel the same way.” 

She felt like she was floating. Her entire body had vanished in the mist and all she could feel was her heart beating so fast it could burst at any moment. All that she could focus on was Sasuke, his every word echoing in a thunderous chorus. 

“Just as certain as you will one day be the Hokage, Naruto.” She could hear the resolve in his heart as he spoke those words. Whatever Sasuke would say next would be his ultimate goal. An inescapable reality that he would strive towards with every fiber of his being. “So to will you be my wife.”

Sasuke pulled away from her then and walked away with a smug swagger in his step. His words were a chain that bound her to the inescapable fate he had envisioned. 

Without Sasuke there, Naruto fell to her knees, her body painfully numb as she felt the cold ocean fog on her burning skin for what felt like the first time. She took short sharp breaths while her brain attempted to make sense of the emotional backlog Sasuke had just given her. 

Why did she feel so happy?


	10. Protective Instinicts 10 beta - Google Docs

“Hey, loser want to go on a date?” Sasuke took an extra step closer to Naruto, pressing into her personal space just enough to put her on edge. He wasn’t pushy or anything, simply persistent. 

“Huh, what? N-no way!” Naruto stammered, blood rushed to her cheeks. She took a step away from him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. Why was the bastard doing this to her! He should have gotten the hint when she tried to move out. 

It was a failed attempt, really. She’d only lasted two days before she showed back up at the Bastard’s house demanding to be fed. Cooking was hard! And Sasuke was so good at it. And all of the stuff to make stuff was in his kitchen, even her ramen cups! Also her garden, she’d probably miss that than the bastards cooking! 

At least the bastard hadn’t tried anything since they got back from Wave Country. Once she moved back in, things had returned to normal. And aside from Sasuke doing that stupid smirk of his whenever she caught him staring at her, everything had been just like it was before.

At least until now. 

Sasuke brushed his knuckles against her cheek and flipped her ponytail back over her shoulder. She hadn’t changed her hairstyle because he said he liked it like that or anything. He was just right that it was easier and looked better on her -- even Sakura agreed!

“Okay,” Sasuke shrugged. A soft smile formed on his face. “Want to go get ramen, then take a walk together, and spend the night watching a really bad movie?” 

Naruto blinked. That actually sounded like a lot of fun. Plus ramen! It’d been so long since she had ramen, mostly because it was cheaper to eat at home. And Sasuke was a good cook. “Yeah, that sounds like fun!” 

That stupid smirk that she hated so much appeared on Sasuke’s face. It was that same stupid smirk he gave her when he said all that stuff. He was such a bastard to say that she’d be the Hokage and then make it so she couldn’t be happy because he said she was going to be his wife in the future! Bastard!

“It’s a date then.” 

What? What! Naruto sprinted to the other side of the road and pressed herself up against the wooden fence desperate to get away from Sasuke. Her face felt hot, breath was short. She stared at Sasuke wide-eyed. He tricked her! “B-b-bastard!”

Without thinking Naruto ran in a random direction. 

XXXX

Sakura stared at Sasuke as he smiled at Naruto’s retreating form. She folded her arms and tapped her foot lightly on the ground. “Honestly! She didn’t even care that you brushed her cheek or the fact that you were holding hands earlier, but asking her out is too much?” 

“I could probably kiss her if I didn’t say anything.” Sasuke shrugged and began to walk in the direction Naruto had gone. 

It was weird seeing Sasuke this happy. Like really weird. Sakura fell in beside Sasuke and stared at him with a critical eye. Naruto was right, Sasuke was definitely a bastard. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” 

Sasuke’s smile only grew. “I do find it rather cute.” 

Sadistic bastard. Sakura slowed her steps so that she could freely glare at the back of Sasuke’s head. It was like watching a cat play with its food. Sasuke pretty much had Naruto in the palm of his hand and yet he was letting her run around like an idiot. 

Naruto was on a whole different level. It was painfully obvious that the girl relied on Sasuke for everything from food to emotional support. It was equally obvious that Naruto returned Sasuke’s feelings deep down. 

Hell, when the blond Idiot wasn’t aware of it, she got as close to Sasuke as possible. 

She just wished that they would get together already. She would take Naruto and Sasuke being lovey dovey with each other over this crap, any day of the week. Honestly, all this whole one true love stuff was bullshit. There was no way in hell she was going to fall for that again. 

“Look, sorry about your nap or whatever but quick I need you to act like you’re asking me out.” Naruto’s frantic whispers echoed from around the corner. 

Sasuke froze mid-step. His left eye was twitching and Sakura could see it rapidly alternate between red and black. This was probably the angriest she’d ever seen him. 

“No, go away Naruto.” Every syllable sounded like it was a yawn. “Man, you’re such a drag.” 

Naruto appeared from around the corner, pulling on both of Shikamaru’s arms. The boy leaned back as far as possible, his head bobbing helplessly with each step. “Come on Shikamaru! I just need you to do this one thing for me.” 

“A date isn’t one thing Naruto,” Shikamaru mumbled. “Besides you’re not my type, you’re way too energetic. There’s no way in hell I would date you.” 

“I think you should take her up on the date Shikamaru, you won’t be able to do much better than Naruto with your personality.” Ino came from behind and pushed Shikamaru forward.   
Shikamaru’s eyes went wide as he fell forward with Ino’s push and Naruto’s pull, right into the waiting arms of Naruto. In a masterful move, Naruto managed to position them so that they appeared to be in a lover’s embrace. 

Choji appeared behind her as well, bag of chips in hand. “Ino’s right. Besides, Naruto isn’t that bad.” 

A low growl resonated from deep within Sasuke. His jaw was clenched and his fists were balled so tightly it hurt. Then he took a deep breath and his body relaxed. He entered a state of tranquility that was almost more frightening than his anger. He stalked forward. 

Sakura sighed and followed after Sasuke just in case he did something stupid. Which given how Sasuke was practically green with jealousy, was very likely. 

“Oh, hey, Sasuke! What are you doing here?!” Ino all but shouted, batting her eyelashes with every other word. “Here to take me out on a date?”

If Sasuke heard Ino he didn’t respond. His eyes were locked onto Naruto, who tried her best to keep Shikamaru pinned to her. He let out a long breath and spoke softly. “Loser.” 

“Hey, Bastard.” Naruto tried to sound cheerful and happy. “Listen, I can’t go out with you because I’m going to go out with Sasuke, I mean Shikamaru, now and he’s going to be my boyfriend so there’s no way that I could ever.” 

“Shut up.” Sasuke grabbed Naruto’s hand with his own, and gripped Shikamaru’s shoulder. He separated them with ease and began to pull Naruto away. “We’re going to go eat ramen and you’re going to enjoy it.” 

Despite her earlier protest Naruto just followed along and nodded dumbly. “‘Kay.” 

Sakura watched as her teammates vanished around another corner and let out a deep sigh. She wondered if perhaps it was too late to request a transfer. 

“Sakura!” Ino shouted with enough volume that even Naruto would be impressed, and grabbed onto Sakura’s shoulders. She shook Sakura three times. “What the hell was that? Did you see that? Explain!” 

“Pig.” Sakura peeled Ino’s hand off her shoulder like it was a piece of trash. She smacked her lips and looked at Ino with her eyes only half opened. “That was Sasuke getting jealous over Naruto.” 

“I know, but I want to know why!” Ino whined and placed her hand back on Sakura’s shoulder She leaned in close enough that their foreheads were nearly touching. “Are they together?” 

“Technically no, but Sasuke’s in love with Naruto and Naruto’s in denial about being in love with Sasuke.” Sakura let out another long sigh. “Honestly those two are so troublesome.” 

Ino’s eyes went wide. She released Sakura and sprinted after Sasuke and Naruto, her arms in the air. “There’s still hope for us, Sasuke! I’m blond and less stupid!” 

Shikamaru picked himself up off the ground and eyed her carefully. “What about you? Weren’t you in love with Sasuke too?” 

It didn’t surprise her that Shikamaru was unaware that she had changed a month before they graduated. If he wasn’t asleep at the back of the class, he was staring out of the window. Sakura gave him a fatigued smile and a slight shrug. “Ehh, I haven’t been in love with Sasuke in a while. Right now I’m looking for an average ninja to have an average life with.” 

There was the slightest hint of something in Shikamaru’s eyes and his mouth twitched upward slightly. “Well, you want to go have Barbeque with us?” 

Sakura narrowed her eyes at Shikamaru. He wasn’t much to look at, neither too ugly nor to pretty. He came from a good clan, was a decent ninja. He’d do just fine. She nodded and walked at Shikamaru’s side. “I expect you to make Chunin before we settle down.” 

“Troublesome woman, already making demands.” 

XXXX

Sasuke felt fantastic. Better than ever actually. 

He could feel raw power coursing through him. It radiated outwards from a spot on his neck, right where that strange ninja bit him. 

But none of that mattered right now. Naruto was in his arms, still blissfully asleep. She was the true reason for why he felt so good right now, of that he had no doubt. Not content enough to fully wake up Sasuke pulled Naruto closer.

It brought him no small amount of joy as she squeezed him back. 

Everything was so perfect even. If only Sakura would stop screaming. Couldn’t she just go get murdered somewhere else?

“After I’m done with you pinkie, I think I’ll take my time with your pretty blonde friend before we kill her too.” A rough voice scraped against a sadistic cackle. 

Blonde? Naruto was blonde…. Naruto was pretty as well… and he was fairly certain that Naruto and Sakura were friends. 

Sasuke’s eyes opened wide. The first thing he saw was Naruto in his arms. She was bruised and her clothes were torn. Somebody had hurt Naruto. Somebody had hurt his Naruto. Somebody was going to pay. 

He stood in one fluid motion, his Sharingan blazing to life. They were in the Forest of Death still. Some of his classmates lay defeated nearby, Team Ten or something, they were allies. The team from Sound stood victorious with the stupid-looking one holding a bloodied Sakura in his hand. 

“Sakura,” Sasuke took a small step forward. He could feel the power as it ebbed and flowed through his body. It demanded a target. Oh, they were all going to get it, but somebody was going to be first. “Which one of these assholes did this?” 

Sakura looked at the boy the held her and gave him a victorious smile, she pointed a lone finger at him and coughed out, “you’re screwed now.” 

It was over before it really started. Sasuke delivered a punch to the stomach which forced the boy off the ground, followed by a kick that barely missed Sakura’s head that sent the boy flying into the tree behind his teammates. 

It was almost too easy. The fools moved so slow, he could see where they were going to move. It didn’t matter when the girl joined in or even the bandaged bastard. In the end, they were nothing before such a rush of power. 

When the fight was all but finished he had the stupid-looking one’s throat in his hands as he pinned him against a tree. Sasuke twisted his head to the side and let out a low growl. His face was dark and humorless. “So you thought you were going to touch my Naruto.” 

“No!” The boy struggled against his grip, clawing at Sasuke’s arm with feeble swipes. “She’s not my type I swear!” 

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the Bastard and leaned in close. It was taking all of his willpower to not crush the boy's throat. “Then, which blond friend of Sakura’s were you talking about?” 

“The hot one!” he struggled to gasp out and point in the vague direction of Ino. 

Sasuke was vaguely aware that Ino was shouting. “I’m so out of your league!” 

The comment infuriated Sasuke. Was Naruto not good enough for this punk? He slammed the idiot back against the tree with renewed force and let out a growl. “And what exactly is wrong with Naruto huh? She not pretty enough for you?”

“She’s too loud and stupid.” The words were closer to a cough than anything else. 

Sasuke blinked at stared at the boy. He had a good point. A very good point. Only he had the patience to be with a loud idiot like Naruto. He let the boy drop. “Fair enough.” 

As if by magic Naruto choose that moment to wake up. She looked around the clearing, confused, before she let out a long yawn that exposed just the slightest bit of her her slender waist. 

She was so breathtaking. His enchantress beneath satin silks. His muse, his purpose, his idealization of beauty. In that moment she became a woman in Sasuke’s eyes. She had gone from cute to beautiful. Not that the way she yawned wasn’t as cute as before. 

“Bastard?” Naruto asked him in confusion, she rubbed her eye that was thick with sleep. “What happened?”

Sasuke couldn’t take it anymore. He stalked forward, deaf to the voices of the others. All that he could see was Naruto. He reached down and pulled Naruto up. And he kissed her. It was a different kiss from the one Naruto had given in her sleep. This one was taken. It was rougher. 

For a second Naruto kissed back. Then she became aware of where they were and what was happening, and began to flail her arms in protest. 

It was a good kiss. But he couldn’t wait for the day when Naruto would freely give her kisses to him. He imagined her kisses given when she was awake would be his favorite. 

XXXX OMAKE XXXX

“Lord Orochimaru?” 

Orochimaru sighed. Clearly Kabuto had no idea what it meant to be undercover. A jounin from the waterfall village that was sat within earshot spat out his drink. He’d have to be dealt with later. “Yes, random Konoha ninja I’ve never seen before in my life?” 

Not his smoothest line. 

“My apologies.” Kabuto bowed low, getting an odd look from another ninja. “But I believe you should know what happened in the forest.” 

Orochimaru sighed and rolled his finger. “Yes yes, my team got beaten by Sasuke Uchiha. What of it.” 

Kabuto gulped and pushed his glasses up. “The curse mark had an unforeseen effect on Sasuke.” 

“Get to the point Kabuto.” No point in cover at this point. 

“It, umm... it appears to have made him want to kiss the Uzumaki on his team?” 

Orochimaru blinked in confusion. “Explain.” 

“Well it's just, instead of going on a rampage and killing your team he decided to kiss his teammate…. A lot.” 

That was certainly unexpected. Oh well, surely it wouldn’t affect any plans.

XXXX OMAKE 2 XXXX

Shukaku sat in his seal lazily making another sand castle out of his own sand. He had seen a human do something similar once by pretending their belly was a face and making it talk. It was basically the same thing. Only he made sand castles instead of faces… He could probably make faces too! 

Suck it, humans!

“Shukaku!” a roar that sounded like distant thunder echoed throughout his seal.

Oh, goodie a visitor! Shukaku spun around to look at the large bars that represented his seal. An orange dot appeared in the distance of the darkness. Oh, it was him. 

The roar grew in volume as the creature grew as well. Kurama slammed into his seal with enough force to topple a mountain… or at the very least ruin his sand castle. The seal didn’t budge. “Shukaku!” 

“What do you want, fuzz butt?” Shukaku spat out a ball of sand and hit Kurama in the face. The fox looked panicked, like the worse thing ever had just happened. Though not a lot could be worse than being sealed forever. 

“I need you to make your container fall in love with my container and then kill her boyfriend!” Kurama wiped off the sand spit without batting an eye and had a large open mouth smile. 

“Why?” Questions like, how are you here, and why aren’t you sealed didn’t seem too terribly important. It was probably some weird Bijuu shit he never really learned. Like the whole be made of actual chakra thing. He liked being made out of sand. 

Kurama’s smile vanished and by some magic, he reached through the seal and pulled Shukaku closed to it. “Because he’s an Uchiha!” 

“A what?” 

Kurama roared in frustration and ran away in some other direction. 

Shukaku sat back down and began to build his sandcastle again.


	11. Protective Instinicts 11 - Google Docs

He felt pathetic. 

It wasn’t a feeling Sasuke enjoyed, but it one he was beginning to grow accustomed to. The first time had been when Kakashi had sealed his curse mark and he’d been unable to apologize to Naruto for his actions. He knew that she didn’t want him now, but that she would in the future. His actions under the curse mark’s influence were still his and he did desire them, but Naruto didn’t, and they could be hazardous in the long run. 

When they had met briefly - before Kakashi took him away for training - she had eyed him like a frightened cat. 

The second was when he was unable to defeat the monster that was Gaara. It wasn’t that Naruto was stronger than him, it was that he had failed to protect her, or even to fight alongside her. To stand by her side where he belonged. He needed to be able to protect her. 

His inability to do so gnawed at him constantly. 

And now, he stood there, unable to console Naruto. The death of the Third Hokage weighed heavily on her. While he felt the sting of loss as well, he had underestimated the depth of Naruto’s bond with the old man. She was devastated. 

Naruto was sad and there was nothing he could do to make her feel better. 

Sasuke reached out and gave Naruto’s shoulder a tight squeeze. She turned to look at him, ready to burst into tears at any moment. Her frown turned into a soft smile and her eyes looked towards the ground. Placing her hand atop his she turned back towards the funeral. 

It seemed so fitting that the sky was heavy and laden with rain. 

XXXX

Whoever said it was easy to fall asleep to the sound of rain was a liar. Sasuke stared at up at the ceiling, well past the point where he would normally have fallen asleep. He would have loved to blame his lack of sleep on the obnoxiously loud raindrops that pelted his roof relentlessly. 

It was his own thoughts that kept him awake tonight. They raged in his mind like an ocean at storm. Guilt, regret, sorrow, hatred crashed into one another in a maelstrom that was a thousand times louder in his mind than the worst storm Konoha had ever faced. 

With an annoyed grunt, Sasuke shifted in his bed, pulling the covers with him. His blankets were now a tangled mess that only added to his annoyance. It would have been easy to sit up and correct them, but it would only wake him up even more. 

Sasuke chased after sleep, weighed down by the distance between him and Naruto. Their rift was his fault for getting impatient and pushing Naruto’s trust too far. Now everything seemed to be in danger. 

“Sasuke.” An unmistakable tingle ran up his spine as Naruto’s raspy voice scraped against white noise of the rain. He turned sharply in his bed to see her ethereal form standing in the doorway. Despite the darkness, or perhaps because of it, her honey blonde hair seemed to glow. “I don’t want to be alone.”

There was a need in her voice that Sasuke knew all too well. He felt it every time he looked at her. So he hoped more than asked, “Do you want to sleep in here?” 

The silence was a thousand times louder than the rain. Sasuke waited with bated breath for her answer. He stared at the ghost of her form for what felt like an age. 

Without a word, she placed her knee onto his bed and paused for just a moment before she climbed in beside him. Sasuke was quick to right his covers so that Naruto was included under their warmth. 

Sasuke stared at the back of Naruto’s head a long time, not saying anything. He felt at peace knowing that there were mere inches between them, though he desperately wished that she was in his arms. 

“Bastard?” 

“Naruto?” 

“Don’t move.” Her command was so absolute Sasuke didn’t breathe. Even as Naruto scooted closer to him he didn’t so much as blink. Inside the statue that was his body, his heart raced. What was she doing? Did she know what she was doing? Was she sleepwalking? Was she sleep flirting with him? 

Naruto squirmed so that her back was pressed against Sasuke’s front, his view obstructed by the blond hair he adored. She reached under her side and snaked his lower arm through to the other side. With her other arm, she forced him to hug her. “There.”

Sasuke found himself smiling and he pulled Naruto in tighter for a moment before he loosened his grasp. He took a deep breath filled with the scent of Naruto’s hair. His eyes felt heavy and he thought that sleep would claim him at any moment. “Goodnight Naruto.” 

Mere seconds before he could fall asleep Naruto spun around violently in his arms. And kissed him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him harder into the small peck. For all the emotion behind it, the kiss was little more than a long forceful peck. 

Not that Sasuke minded. 

“Naruto?” He asked softly and backed away from her. This didn’t seem right, after all the kicking and screaming. Why had she chosen now to start kissing him? “What’s wrong with you?” 

Her blue eyes seemed to shine in the dark, her hand trailed a line to his cheek. “Isn’t this what you wanted? I want to be happy right now.”

She leaned forward and blubbered another kiss onto his lips. It felt so wrong for this to be the official start of their relationship. Sasuke resisted until she pecked at his lips a third time. And then the floodgates opened. He pressed against her wanting this just as much as she did. 

“I love you,” Sasuke repeated, though he spoke the words as though he had never said them before. They tasted sweet now that he was not on death’s doorstep. 

When Naruto pressed her face into his chest he realized she had been crying. “Yea, I love you bastard.” 

She hugged him tightly and whispered. “Please never leave me.” 

Sasuke nodded and kissed her on the top of her head. “Yea I promise.” 

XXXX

“So you’re leaving?” 

Naruto let out a sigh as Sasuke handed her the pack that he had prepared for her. “Yea, it’ll only be for like a month or so. Remember to water the garden in the morning, the carrots and tomatoes need to be watered in the afternoon as well.” 

She tried to pull the bag away but Sasuke refused to let go of it. “And you’re leaving with a perverted old man, who you met how again?”

“I told you I met the pervy sage while you were with Kakashi learning the Chidori he’s the one that taught me how to summon toads!” Naruto stomped her feet and grabbed the bag with both hands. “Quit being so childish!” 

Sasuke snorted at her. “And I can’t go why?” 

“I tried to get him to take you to but he said that he wanted to teach me something awesome that’s only for me and that you being there would be a distraction and that this is a for real serious training trip!” She voice sped up, almost tripping over itself by the end, while she pulled harder and harder on the bag, until at long last she gave a mighty tug, pulling Sasuke towards her.

They landed on the couch, the bag sandwiched between them. Another one of the Bastard’s plans, no doubt. It was like their whole relationship was a scheme to get a kiss from her. She glared at him, expecting to see that stupid smile he got when he won. Instead, his mouth formed a hard line. “I have a bad feeling about this, Naruto.” 

All she could do was roll her eyes. In a way, it was flattering how much she meant to Sasuke. But it was also scary. Scarier still was how much he meant to her. It took the death of one of her most important people for her to realize that. 

Still he was being a bit of a dweeb right now. She leaned up and gave him a kiss if for no other reason than to shut him up for a second. “Pervy sage is like a super strong ninja, and we’re going to go find the next Hokage, what could go wrong?”

XXXX

“Is it true that Itachi is after Naruto?” 

The words thundered in Sasuke’s mind, blinding him to everything but his one goal: protecting Naruto. It was a more than a desire to him -- it was a need. She was irreplaceable. And he would not let anyone take her away from him.

Itachi is after Naruto

He would not allow his brother to take his family away from him again. This was a fundamental truth in Sasuke’s mind, in his very being. It was who he was. 

He bolted up the stairs, swearing at the woman that had given him the wrong directions just moments ago. A second could be all that separated Naruto from life and death. And that woman had wasted minutes of his time. 

Sasuke slammed into the corner, unwilling to slow even the slightest in his pursuit of Naruto. He took the stairs two at a time. He heard Naruto yelp and his blood turned to fire, demanding action. 

Itachi

His brother stood in the hallway with the same bored expression he’d worn that night.. For a moment, Sasuke remembered that night clearly, how his brother had taken everything from him. And threatened to do so now.

Naruto.

Naruto stood struggling against the grip of a tall blue man. He was hurting Naruto. He was going to die. 

“Naruto!” Sasuke shouted to gain her attention. It was odd his brother almost seemed shocked that he did not call out to him. 

Itachi stopped and his eyes widened. He looked between Naruto and Sasuke, and for a moment regret flashed across his face before it returned to that familiar cold mask. “How unfortunate for you, brother.” 

“Stay away from her, Itachi!” Sasuke growled as he prepared his sole ace against his brother. The Chidori. Kakashi had said to only use it to defend his fellow ninja. Naruto was that and so much more. 

It was all over in a flash, his concentration broken as Itachi slammed him into the wall and dismissed his Chidori like it was nothing. 

Itachi’s Mangekyo Sharingan activated and flared to life. “It appears as though you have forgotten how to hate brother, allow me to remind you.” 

Sasuke withered as he relived the night his parents died over and over, reopening the wounds that Naruto had healed. Sasuke grit his teeth and clung to the idea of Naruto in a desperate attempt to stay coherent. Even as he felt his consciousness fade he held onto her name in desperation. 

He clung to the idea of Naruto as he weathered the storm of Tsukuyomi. 

When the jutsu ended Sasuke felt his world spinning. It would have been so easy to fall. All he would have to do was stop. 

“You are still weak,” Itachi whispered, his voice colder than ice. It stung knowing that his brother was right. He was weak, so very weak. He couldn’t save Naruto.

“Sasuke!” Naruto’s desperate plea woke him up.

The world became clear. Clearer than it ever had before. His body screamed at him, drained from Itachi’s torture. He grabbed Itachi’s arm and jammed a Kunai into his brother’s elbow. “You, you will not hurt her!” 

He had to save Naruto. He needed to save Naruto. He would save Naruto! No matter the cost she would live! 

His brother looked at him wide eyed and then jumped away as Sasuke’s kunai fell to the ground with a clang. A mixture of surprise and pride spread across Itachi's face. “Mangekyo.” 

Sasuke took a slow step forward, not trusting his leg. Every single cell in his body screamed in agony. It was not a lingering effect of Itachi’s jutsu, no, this was something else. All it required was a command. “Susanoo! Save Naruto!” 

Yellow flames erupted from Sasuke and a spectral skeleton appeared around him. It launched a long clawed hand outwards and separated Naruto from the blue man. 

“Kisame, we’re leaving,” Itachi almost whispered, still clutching his wounded arm. 

The blue man protested briefly and gave a swing at Sasuke’s Susanoo before Jiraiya arrived, and he suddenly agreed that running was a good idea. 

With the battle over Sasuke couldn’t help but allow himself a small measure of pride. He had saved Naruto. His brother had wanted her and he’d stopped him. Without a word Sasuke walked towards Naruto, every single joint groaning in agony. 

“I told you I had a bad feeling.” With that small satisfaction, Sasuke allowed himself to fall forward, knowing that Naruto would catch him.


End file.
